Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

In which antivaccinationist Ginger Taylor is taught a lesson, and not by Orac

It’s rare that my readers send me something that makes me laugh out loud, but this post did. I’ll give you a bit of background first, though. Lacking the science to back up their dangerous pseudoscience, antivaccine warriors tend to resort very early to ad hominem attacks. Apparently they figure that if they can discredit the messenger who promotes the message that vaccines are safe and effective (and don’t cause autism). One of their favorite techniques to accomplish this is something for which I originally coined a phrase way back in 2005: The Pharma Shill Gambit. You see it whenever someone like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. calls, for example, Paul Offit a “biostitute.” You see it whenever antivaccinationists claim that defenders of science are hopelessly biased because they are completely in the thrall of big pharma, carrying it to ridiculous extremes, as Jake Crosby often does. Indeed, one time three years ago, egged on by The Young Master Crosby, a bunch of antivaccinationists tried to get me fired from my job because—get this—my university had accepted a grant from Sanofi-Aventis to do research completely unrelated to what I do. However, since one of the drugs I study in my lab is manufactured by Sanofi-Aventis, naturally Jake saw a quid pro quo and an undisclosed conflict of interest. It would have been hilarious if it hadn’t briefly caused me such agita. Fortunately, my university administration immediately recognized the charges for the nonsense they were, and my dean was so supportive that she asked me if I felt physically threatened by Jake’s minions. I didn’t, but maybe I should have.

Be that as it may, this is the background that will allow you to understand why I found the comments sent to me by some of my readers so hilarious. There’s one more thing that might help explain things. Yesterday, I wrote about the Canary Party, an antivaccine political party that was recently endorsed by that Internet Crank To Rule All Internet Cranks (well most Internet Cranks, anyway), Mike Adams of NaturalNews.com. Most recently, the Canary Party released a video narrated by the latest celebrity antivaccine crank du jour, Rob Schneider, that was chock full of lies and misinformation about the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). Consistent with the embrace of Tea Party politics by the Canary Party, Ginger Taylor somehow managed to get a post about Schneider’s video published over at The Daily Paul entitled Comic Rob Schneider Explains That Americans Have No Right to Sue for Vaccine Injury pimping that very same misinformation-laden video. That’s not the hilarious part. Ms. Taylor’s post is simply a regurgitation of the same old lies claiming that the Vaccine Court is somehow an affront to justice. No, the hilarity comes in the comments, where one reader referenced my deconstruction of the dishonest Canary Party video (but I repeat myself). Ginger was not pleased at this. Not pleased at all:

Orac is a drug developer for vaccine maker Sanofi. And he hid that for more than five years while writing about vaccines and autism. While developing a drug for them with applications for autism. Until an expose uncovered his failure to disclose his very serious conflict of interest.

So yep… absolutely… he is a compromised source. Also a cancer surgeon, not an immunologist, neurologist, or autism specialist.

No, Ms. Taylor. I am not a drug developer for Sanofi-Aventis. I don’t receive any funding from Sanofi-Aventis. I don’t exactly do drug development, either. Rather, I use an existing drug that happens to be manufactured by Sanofi-Aventis to probe the molecular mechanism of glutamate signaling in breast cancer cells and find better ways to target certain glutamate receptors. Nor do I have a “very serious conflict of interest.” While it’s true that I am not an immunologist, neurologist, or autism specialist, I do know scientific methodology. Besides, Ms. Taylor is also neither an immunologist, neurologist, nor autism specialist. She has a masters degree in clinical counseling, which is not even a degree that would make one qualified to judge basic research; yet she thinks nothing of spouting off about vaccines and autism as though she were an expert on par with Paul Offit. Compared to Ms. Taylor, quite frankly, I am an expert.

But Ms. Taylor’s little broadside wasn’t the best thing about this post. Oh, no. The best thing about this post was that another commenter by the ‘nym of Delysid quite calmly and efficiently handed her head to her with a rebuttal so scathing that Ms. Taylor apparently couldn’t allow it to stand, as the comment is no longer there. However, my readers, ever watching my back, sent me a screenshot that I transcribed:

Based on the work I have read by you, you are extremely dishonest and manipulative with your arguments. I don’t give a damn if you are a fellow Ron Paul supporting freedom fighter or an “autism mother,” you are spreading false information relentlessly and irresponsibly, and I will not be silent about it.

The only way that Orac (who I have never met) is even remotely a conflict of interest is if the fantasy that vaccines cause autism is true. This isn’t true, and it makes your accusation ridiculous.

I’ve been doing some research on digital scanners and implatns. If you made the false accusation that “digital scanners and implants cause tooth decay,” and I blogged that this is nonsense, am I suddenly at conflict of interest? HELL NO.

Science is apolitical. You are trying to politicize science and you are manipulating others using dipshit celebrities to spread your propaganda.

That one’s going to leave a mark.

Ms. Taylor did, however, apparently reply:

Do you believe that the government should be able to pass a law removing the rights of Americans for redress of grievances?

Under any circumstances?

Even in the death or massive disabling of their child?

If so, how do you exactly belong on the Daily Paul?

Poor Ginger. So arrogantly self-righteous. So clueless. It’s a highly toxic combination, even more toxic than all the fantastical “toxins” Ms. Taylor believes to be in vaccines, and as Ms. Taylor believes those toxins to be, her arrogantly sarcastic self-righteousness is deadly threat to any neuron that is exposed to it. However, she can be quite amusing, albeit unintentionally. All she did was to give Delysid another opportunity to demolish her again:

It says here that not only have people been compensated for injury by vaccines, but the average payout is $824,462.

http://www.answers.com/topic/childhood-vaccine-injury-act

Orac claims that you are furious that the government and every other governming body declared that vaccines do not cause autism.

I think this is a fair assesment of the situation. You are determined to prove that vaccines caused autism in your child. Is this it?

You are making one dishonest claim after another. Fortunately for you people love a liar as long as they are cheering on the things they like.

Yes, it looks to me as though Delysid has Ms. Taylor’s number. The only thing he missed is her nauseating condescension and unearned sense of self-righteousness. Truly, Ms. Taylor is the living embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger effect and the arrogance of ignorance. Really, she should quit while she’s not too far behind, but you and I both know that she won’t. At least it will be entertaining. Poor Ms. Taylor, MS.

By Orac

Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski.

That this particular surgeon has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 35 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)

DISCLAIMER:: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.

To contact Orac: [email protected]

1,341 replies on “In which antivaccinationist Ginger Taylor is taught a lesson, and not by Orac”

Ginger must have misread the constitution. It guarantees the right to petition THE GOVERNMENT for a redress of grievances (which, as Delysid mentions, has not been removed).

It never ceases to amaze my how often it can be pointed out to anti-vaccinationists that there is nothing that removes the rights for redress for real vaccine injuries. They can even sue for design defect claims, as long as they go through the VICP first. Of course, that destroys their self-righteous martyr complex, so it shouldn’t be surprising that they would continuously lie about it.

Key words Todd: “real vaccine injuries.”

To Delysid, a round of applause and a high-pitched, “nailed it!”

Every once in a while, when this nonsense starts, the masses you wouldn’t expect come out and highlight just how fringe the fringe is. But like the HuffPo article going viral, more people need to do it.

The same Ginger Taylor who has been asserting that she has been a volunteer for the Canard Party but accepting a salary from them? Typical.

The same filthy-mouthed Ginger Taylor who set the example for the Thinking Moms. The same Ginger Taylor who spreads lies and who inserted herself into the Crosby/Bolen fiasco. (Good for entertainment value, though).

Good on “Delysid” for calling Ginger out on her defamatory lies…whoever (s)he is.

Ms. Taylor was definitely, as the kids say, pwn3d in that exchange. She’s entitled to her own opinion, but not her own facts. Such as the government being allowed to specify the procedures by which people may seek redress, which does not mean the right to redress does not exist. (Incidentally, where does Ms. Taylor stand on things like mandatory arbitration contracts? Those things actually are designed to deny people a meaningful right to seek redress. But the people I have seen opposing the practice are not the people who openly share Ms. Taylor’s political views.)

Not that this will deter her. She can moderate commenters like Delysid out of existence and go on living in her internet bubble.

Orac:
” which is not even a degree that would make one qualified to judge basic research”.

Totally agreed.
It’s possible that she was not at all required to take experimentally-based courses that are dependent upon research ( e.g. perception, cognition, developmental, physiology etc) or much about statistical analysis or research design.

She probably did not have to submit research proposals or work with researchers. While this is called “clinical” it’s not the same as clinical psych which would include more of what I refer to above, even at a master’s level.

Same goes for Mac Neil’s social work degree and focus on psychotherapy.

They can even sue for design defect claims, as long as they go through the VICP first.

No, they can’t. Bruesewitz v Wyeth settled that. Claims of manufacturing defects and inaccurate labelling may be pursued outside the VICP. Design defect claims may not:

Held: The NCVIA preempts all design-defect claims against vaccine manufacturers brought by plaintiffs seeking compensation for injury or death caused by a vaccine’s side effects.

It doesn’t get more explicit than that.

Delysid’s “dishonest” comment is still there, along with several others lamenting the level of scientific ignorance that allows the anti-vax lobby to ply its trade.

But I think the “WAKE UP” comment, posted by Bomobo (page 2 comments) sums things up pretty well.

@Beamup

The way I understood it, that simply means that they cannot go directly to civil court for design defect claims. First they need to go through the vaccine court. Once they have done that, they are free to accept or appeal the decision by the Special Master. If that fails, they may then go on to civil court.

Hey Orac and others,

I’ve been lurking on Respectful Insolence for a few months. It was refreshing discovery for me. I’ve been battling the quackery being spouted by others in the libertarian community, especially on the Daily Paul, for a few years now. I thought no one despised Mike Adams more than I do, but Dr. Gorski might have me beat. lol

I may be recollecting wrongly, but the Vaccine Court pays (all?) attorney’s fees, regardless of the ruling. This makes it even easier for those claiming an injury to go before them.

@sirhcton

You are correct. Win or lose, reasonable attorneys’ fees are paid by the program.

@ sirhcton

You’re right. In fact, I think a lot of shady ambulance chasers have taken to the Court because it’s a guaranteed paycheck, unlike civil courts.

Denice Walter,

She may have had some research courses but she either:

1. Doesn’t remember them
2. Cannot see her objectivity is compromised because of her intimacy with the subject matter.
3. All of the above.

For my MSW degree while clinically focused had a research aspect. I had to go through the whole process from proposal, IRB filing, data collecting, SPSS, interpretation, discussion, writing the results, presentation, questions and answers as part of my degree. It depends upon the school as to what the focus is. I know there is an MSSW degree which is heavily research focused. You could be spot on though as her college/university is not heavily research focused. Mine (USF) is so I received the benefit of both research and clinical training.

Two landmark events – a government concession in the US Vaccine Court, and a groundbreaking scientific paper – confirm that physician, scientist, and Autism Media Channel [AMC] Director, Dr. Andrew Wakefield, and the parents were right all along.

In a recently published December 13, 2012 vaccine court ruling, hundreds of thousands of dollars were awarded to Ryan Mojabi, [i] whose parents described how “MMR vaccinations,” caused a “severe and debilitating injury to his brain, diagnosed as Autism Spectrum Disorder (‘ASD’).”

Later the same month, the government suffered a second major defeat when young Emily Moller from Houston won compensation following vaccine-related brain injury that, once again, involved MMR and resulted in autism. The cases follow similar successful petitions in the Italian and US courts (including Hannah Poling [ii], Bailey Banks [iii], Misty Hyatt [iv], Kienan Freeman [v], Valentino Bocca [vi], and Julia Grimes [vii]) in which the governments conceded or the court ruled that vaccines had caused brain injury. In turn, this injury led to an ASD diagnosis. MMR vaccine was the common denominator in these cases.

There can be very little doubt that vaccines can and do cause autism. In these children, the evidence for a n adverse reaction involving brain injury following the MMR that progresses to an autism diagnosis is compelling. It’s now a question of the body count. The parents’ story was right all along. Governments must stop playing with words while children continue to be damaged . My hope is that recognition of the intestinal disease in these children will lead to the relief of their suffering. This is long , long overdue .”

Here is a list of 28 studies from around the world that support Dr. Wakefield’s research:

The Journal of Pediatrics November 1999; 135(5):559-63
The Journal of Pediatrics 2000; 138(3): 366-372
Journal of Clinical Immunology November 2003; 23(6): 504-517
Journal of Neuroimmunology 2005
Brain, Behavior and Immunity 1993; 7: 97-103
Pediatric Neurology 2003; 28(4): 1-3
Neuropsychobiology 2005; 51:77-85
The Journal of Pediatrics May 2005;146(5):605-10
Autism Insights 2009; 1: 1-11
Canadian Journal of Gastroenterology February 2009; 23(2): 95-98
Annals of Clinical Psychiatry 2009:21(3): 148-161
Journal of Child Neurology June 29, 2009; 000:1-6
Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders March 2009;39(3):405-13
Medical Hypotheses August 1998;51:133-144.
Journal of Child Neurology July 2000; ;15(7):429-35
Lancet. 1972;2:883–884.
Journal of Autism and Childhood Schizophrenia January-March 1971;1:48-62
Journal of Pediatrics March 2001;138:366-372.
Molecular Psychiatry 2002;7:375-382.
American Journal of Gastroenterolgy April 2004;598-605.
Journal of Clinical Immunology November 2003;23:504-517.
Neuroimmunology April 2006;173(1-2):126-34.
Prog. Neuropsychopharmacol Biol. Psychiatry December 30 2006;30:1472-1477.
Clinical Infectious Diseases September 1 2002;35(Suppl 1):S6-S16
Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 2004;70(11):6459-6465
Journal of Medical Microbiology October 2005;54:987-991
Archivos venezolanos de puericultura y pediatría 2006; Vol 69 (1): 19-25.
Gastroenterology. 2005:128 (Suppl 2);Abstract-303

OMFG! Bamobo is so totally on to us!

S/he’s aware of the brain altering/ brainwashing, subliminally conditioned shopping, hypno-television, pagan rituals and the shape shifting reptile/ human bodyshare programme.

And the Daily Paul’s own logo mentions “GOLD”** which is, of course, key to his Lordship’s ultimate plan. It also includes – “peace and love”. We can’t have that.

Frigging Freedom Fighters, they’ll get you everytime.

** there’s an AU in Paul. That explains everything.

Okay, so according to Ms Taylor, she thinks you are developing autism drugs, yet are not an autism specialist? You’d think she could keep her lies straight over the span of three sentences.

The way I understood it, that simply means that they cannot go directly to civil court for design defect claims. First they need to go through the vaccine court. Once they have done that, they are free to accept or appeal the decision by the Special Master. If that fails, they may then go on to civil court.

No. We’ve been through this. Post-Bruesewitz, the only path after the OSM is a perfunctory review by Court of Federal Claims, then the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and then SCOTUS. That’s it.

First off, Orac, thanks for everything you are doing. I share your passion for “science-based medicine.” I stumbled upon your other blog while investigating Natural News and Mike Adams a few months ago (or a year ago?) and I’ve been reading your work more and more frequently. Funny stuff. I consider him my nemesis with how frequently people on Facebook and my favorite sites blast me with Natural News links. Despite my best efforts to debunk him it just keeps coming.

I’ve never met him or corresponded with him personally (or on the internet, to my knowledge), but the other day I got into a several hours long public Facebook debate with fairly well known activist (thousands of followers) and her friends against the naturalistic fallacy and Natural News, and the next day Adams published a scathing attack on how “dentists are psychopaths.”

I’d like to think that I influenced that outburst and that it was an indirect attack on me. Maybe some of his paranoid insanity has rubbed off on me, but the timing, content, and language seems to be too relevant to be a coincidence.

I had a good laugh. It’s not the first time I’ve been suspicious that my scathing criticism of him on libertarian outlets had an an impact. Orac has pissed him something awful, too, no doubt.

But I want to clear up a few misconceptions I read here.

Ginger Taylor has no moderating abilities on the Daily Paul and nothing in that thread was censored. Censorship over there is very rare and reserved for chronic hostility and lunacy. I’ve been a paying subscriber to that site for 2 or 3 years now and the moderators and owner know me by first and last name. Comments retract and turn grey and become invisible to guests at a default of negative 7 cumulative votes. To see them all you need is a free sign-up.

In my lurking on Insolence I’ve noticed some strong criticism of the liberty movement. It’s understandable because there is an extremely vocal group of quacks that have latched onto the movement and it’s frustrating as hell. Having been immersed in the culture for a few years, however, I’ve realized that it is strongly a parasitic relationship.

Generalizing my observations, many (not all) so-called liberty activists are first and foremost alternative alternative medicine advocates who are using the liberty as a medium for their propaganda. There is a lot overlap with the quacks, but conspiracy theorists do the same thing. It’s frustrating because the lunatic fringe tends to yell the loudest and muddy other legitimate points with pseudoscience gibberish.

A lot of people who oppose government control over society are trying to deny the science government is involved in. They don’t realize that although government can control the laws of society, but not the laws of nature.

I published an essay about this on the Daily Paul in August. It got one upvote. Maybe you Orac and your readers would find it more interesting.

http://www.dailypaul.com/296506/government-can-manipulate-the-laws-of-society-but-not-the-laws-of-nature

“Comments retract and turn grey and become invisible to guests at a default of negative 7 cumulative votes.”

I cannot understand why websites (and Daily Paul is not the only one) allow people to cast negative votes on a post and cause it to “disappear”, even if it’s just to guests. What that does is enable a form of censorship in which views are deemed “not helpful” to the discussion – but all it really does is encourage people to shout down unpopular ideas.

If you want to deal with virulent invective and outright trolling, there’s a much better way – it’s called “moderation”. Too bad some sites are too lazy to moderate their forums.

“Here is a list of 28 studies from around the world that support Dr. Wakefield’s research”

Care to explain how any of those publications support Wakefield, rather than doing a Gish Gallop of articles without even listing their titles?

well, at least orac has moved on from demonizing woo crap—-grew up maybe; still, hard to understand why orac would want to spend time overwriting—-as orac is prone to do—-and not just do his/her science, if, indeed, orac is a scientist(so claimed). Having said that, I do that the anti-vac folks are “woos” themselves. So long

Didn’t the court find that Ryan Mojabi suffered encephalitis as a result of the MMR vaccination? No finding re Autism.

They were awarded damages for the Vaccine Table Injury encephalitis. Encephalitis is not autism.

Certainly nothing in either decision argues that Wakefield’s Lancet paper was anything other than fraudulent.

Gah! It’s not letting me post the links, but I thought that list looked familiar…then I remembered Left Brain Right Brain and Just the Vax took care of it. A long time ago.

Keating Willcox: “Here is a list of 28 studies from around the world that support Dr. Wakefield’s research:”

Oh, I love that list. Especially the brain dead cutting and pasting where they don’t notice it cites an entire year of a journal! Oh, and it is also old news and very wrong:
http://justthevax.blogspot.com/2011/05/still-no-independent-confirmation-of.html

Also, Keating Willcox, the 2012 Vaccine Court decision was a table injury, and has nothing to do with autism.

And then about this: “There can be very little doubt that vaccines can and do cause autism. In these children, the evidence for a n adverse reaction involving brain injury following the MMR that progresses to an autism diagnosis is compelling.”

The MMR has been in use in the USA since 1971, and was the preferred vaccine for the 1978 Measles Elimination Program. The USA is much larger than the UK, and its MMR vaccine was used for a much longer time before the UK introduced three MMR vaccines in 1988. So if the MMR vaccine causes autism it would have been noticed before Wakefield came on the scene. Please provide verifiable evidence dated before 1990 that autism in the USA went up during the 1970s and 1980s coincident to the use of the MMR vaccine with the Jeryl Lynn mumps component.

How many are you trying to post? There is a limit of two. Or this site just hates you. 😉

DB @29: Two of those papers were published in the 1970s, so those papers don’t support Wakefield’s results (the reverse might have been true if Wakefield’s results had not been fraudulent). I also see a paper from Medical Hypotheses, a paper from the first issue of the journal it’s published in, a paper from a Venezuelan journal, and one that is clearly labeled as an abstract. That’s without actually looking up any of those papers. I would be skeptical that any of the other 22 papers are both (1) published in reputable journals and (2) actually support Wakefield’s results. I have a hunch that some of those papers really do cite Wakefield’s, but to criticize his results rather than to support them (Wakefield’s paper had not yet been retracted).

AnObservingParty was correct: Just the Vax published a thorough takedown of the claim that Keating Willcox regurgitated here. Since links seem problematic, a search for that site and “Still no independent confirmation of Wakefield’s claims” will turn up the evidence that Willcox never read the papers that he cited.

Chris @33: Your response posted while I was typing mine. Thanks for confirming my suspicions.

The first article (Gastrointestinal abnormalities in children with autistic disorder) does not support Wakefield’s claims re: the MMR vaccine being causally associated the development of autism. In fact, it doesn’t mention MMR or measles at all.

Ditto for the second article (Colonic CD8 and gamma delta T-cell infiltration with epithelial damage in children with autism).

And for the third (Intestinal lymphocyte populations in children with regressive autism: evidence for extensive mucosal immunopathology)

And the fourth (Elevated cytokine levels in children with autism spectrum disorder).

And the fifth (Antibodies to myelin basic protein in children with autistic behavior).

The sixth citation actually does address measles virus and autism (Elevated levels of measles antibodies in children with autism). It’s VK Singh’s comment, claiming that he’s found elevated levels of antibodies against measles in the serum of autistic children, but not their siblings or non-autistic children. This finding has never been reproduced; instead, multiple large scale independent studies have failed repeatedly to uncover any association between measles and/or the measles vaccine and autism.

The seventh—but then, there’s really no need to go on. Is there?

Surprising nobody, Keating Wilcox’s facebook page is riddled with crank magnetism at work. far-right-wing nuttery, homophobia, golabl warming denialism, antifeminism/’men’s rights,’ various altie nonsense…and that’s just from the past week.

So, Keating, how many of those 28 studies have you actually read?

Ironically, he also quotes Feynman:

“There are myths and pseudo-science all over the place. I might be quite wrong, maybe they do know all this … but I don’t think I’m wrong, you see I have the advantage of having found out how difficult it is to really know something. How careful you have to be about checking the experiments, how easy it is to make mistakes and fool yourself. I know what it means to know something. And therefore, I see how they get their information and I can’t believe that they know it. They haven’t done the work necessary, they haven’t done the checks necessary, they haven’t taken the care necessary. I have a great suspicion that they don’t know and that they’re intimidating people.”

Mr. Wilcox, I recommend you spend some time checking experiments carefully, and being especially aware of “how easy it is to make mistakes and fool yourself.”

@ Delysid: I don’t know why you even “bother” to argue with the likes of Ginger Taylor, who is firmly convinced her autistic child is “vaccine-damaged”…but I’m glad you do. 🙂

Eric Lund: “Thanks for confirming my suspicions.”

Thanks and your welcome. That list was being spammed so much a couple of years ago, some of us decided to tackle it. And it has happened again with another set of studies that Liz Ditz listed at her site. It starts here:
http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2013/08/-those-lists-of-papers-that-claim-vaccines-cause-autism-part-1.html
and continues to:
http://lizditz.typepad.com/i_speak_of_dreams/2013/08/that-other-list-of-papers-30-scientific-studies-that-demonstrate-vaxes-can-cause-autism.html

“your welcome” is really “your’re”, use your imagination to fix it. (especially since I am giggling at a Grammar Nazi on SBM)

@ brian & AnObservingParty: I think you both got stuck in moderation because the Just The Vax thread you tried to link to, had a slew of links embedded in it.

How marvelously serendipitous it is that “cac” is the exact sound my dog makes when spitting up grass . . .

Reading Keating Wilcox reminds me of the joy I’d see on my kids’ faces at age 2 when they’d discover they could play with the poop in their diapers but didn’t realize it would earn them a long bath with a scrub down later.

@lilady I argue with people like Ginger, even though getting through to people like her is hopeless, to keep myself sharp and to hopefully plant some seeds in others. It’s also pretty convenient having an immediate scientific response the next time the issue arises.

@Chris I agree with the sentiments of the article, but I still disagree with him about gun control and I’m definitely a skeptic regarding the proposed consequences of climate change. Global climate models are based on so many uncertainties and projections on these uncertainties that aspects of climatology enter the realm of pseudoscience. It reminds of the predictions involved in quantitive population genetics. The computations and models sound impressive and some gorgeous, colorful charts are produced, then we realize that basically nothing was accurately predicted and the process starts over with altered models.

It reminds of the predictions involved in quantitive population genetics. The computations and models sound impressive and some gorgeous, colorful charts are produced, then we realize that basically nothing was accurately predicted and the process starts over with altered models.

Umm…as a population geneticist I can tell you that this is not an accurate description of the field, like at all. Many old population genetics models are being validated in humans now that large enough datasets of genetic variation are available. Here’s a great recent example:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=23201682

@AdamG

I wans’t talking about the accuracy of models of retroactive populations genetics, I meant the uncertainty of predicting the future of mutations.

It’s pretty tough to predict the direction of evolution.

I didn’t mean to insult the field of population genetics at all. I actually did my final undergrand senior biology seminar presentation on awesome population genetics study.

Science is much better at figuring out what and why something happened than predicting the future of what and why.

I wasn’t talking about the accuracy of models of retroactive populations genetics, I meant the uncertainty of predicting the future of mutations.

If you don’t understand how these two concepts are intimately related (and essentially the same thing), you don’t understand population genetics. Even still you’re incorrect…classic models of sequence evolution like F84 and GTR have been around for decades and continue to be validated as new population-level datasets are released.

But really none of this has anything to do with your opinions on climate change. Based on what you’ve written I suspect that you’ve been fed a very limited set of ideas on how models are used in science, and how they’re generated.

I haven’t been fed anything.

It seems to me we are on two different pages here.

But I admit to having a very weak understanding of these models.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Models_of_DNA_evolution#See_

But I don’t think this invalidates my point. Despite the impressive quantifive aspects, I stand by statement about uncertainty after uncertainty. This is what climatologists do. This is also what econometrists do. I reject this method.

@ Delysid:

” an extremely vocal group of quacks have latched onto the movement”

I’ve been following Mikey for about 6 years and other quacks for nearly 14 years(!); plus new age material in the 1990s-

I noticed political and economic rhetoric becoming increasingly inflammatory and strident after the economic collapse of 2008- 2009. Perhaps their profits suffered.

My own guess is that Mike would jump on to any bandwagon that would increase his page view count or his bottom line. For a while, he scoffed about how his native land had become unacceptable and relocated to Ecuador where he was to become the centre of a group of enlightened freedom seekers. That didn’t work out so well and he’s moved back.

He capitalises on readers’ fear and mistrust of the establishment as surely as he trades upon their fears of cancer and ill health Seemingly, he has a product for whatever ails you, physically, spiritually or politically.

I believe that he, seeing how lucrative selling alt med can be, modelled his career after Gary Null, who is listed amongst his chief influences at his new bio ( @ health ranger.com). Both also have the bizarre belief that any person can investigate, deconstruct and overturn scientifc research, making them role models for many of the anti-vax contingent, like Ms Taylor.

Over the past several years, I have seen Mike start many new projects and sell new items as well as unveiling new ideas, but it always reduces down to whatever he thinks will earn him more money and the loyalty of those who spend it.

Gonzalez-Angulo gave Blumenschein not just one cup of poisoned coffee, but two.

It was an honest mistake. How was she to know Blumenschein would *drink* what was obviously intended for an enema?

Science is much better at figuring out what and why something happened than predicting the future of what and why.

Certainly there is some uncertainty in the details of climate-model predictions, but the some effect seems likely from reducing the amount of heat re-radiation from the Earth while the amount arriving as sunlight stays the same. By way of analogy, predictions of where you hit ground if you jump from a plane may not be exactly correct, but jumping is still not a good idea.

Delysid @55

Global climate models are based on so many uncertainties and projections on these uncertainties that aspects of climatology enter the realm of pseudoscience.

The people who do these models are acutely aware of the uncertainties and make allowances for them. However, anthropogenic CO2 puts such a huge thumb on the scales that ANY rational model shows the temperature going up very significantly for some time to come. None of the competeing effects that people have dreamed up that might keep this from happening has proven out. There’s a lot of uncertainty involved, but the basic conclusions of anthropogenic global warming are very well-tested, and it would be foolish to ignore them.

I know that’s considered to be heresey in some Libertarian circles, but as you’re acutey aware, scientific issues can’t be decided using political signifiers.

I tried to find a way to ask a question here about the shingles vaccine. I am sorry to intrude on this thread with this question.
I work at a drugstore and was helping a customer find a product in the first aid aisle. I asked them if they had their flu shot. They had just visited their doctor and did get the shot. However, they did not get the shingles vaccine. The customer had shingles twenty years ago. Our Pharmacist on duty told him he did not need the vaccine because he had built up antibodies to it.
?????
The way the CDC site reads, he could have been given one safely. I wonder why the pharmacist simply reccomended that they talk to their doctor first.
The customer wanted the vaccine and would not be seeing their doctor soon.

I’m going to speculate that Orac was busy yesterday. Ginger Taylor proven wrong? And in other news Jake Crosby has found a conspiracy and that chick from AoA is spamming the comments of every vaccine related news story.

A bit OT, but since we have been speaking about stupid things antivaxers say. This is one the most foul quotes I have heard in a while…..

“imagine a newborn protected by it’s mother’s antibodies! those with underlying conditions are another question. you might ask though why would those with underlying conditions have the right to ask others to take a chance at vaccine injury so that they might live?
you might even go as far as saying that measles and other childhood diseases are a weeder out of those not fit to live and we’re not doing ourselves a favour. complicated issues those. “

@Kelly M Bray: noxious, but hardly surprising. I think that they believe that “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” To me, that saying is stupid as many things that don’t kill you do weaken you severely. Case in point: the organ damage caused by diphtheria, a vaccine preventable disease.

@Julian – the anti-vax folks have to say that. They have to “believe” that getting diseases are beneficial to those they get them (and survive / not suffer permanent side-effects) because they know that the end game includes the roaring come-back of VPDs….they have to convince themselves and others that these diseases are benign or even helpful, because otherwise they would have to admit that things like measles are bad (and don’t get me started on Rubella) and should be avoided….and unfortunately, the only means we have for avoidance (besides full quarantines) is vaccines…..it is a vicious cycle.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

My experience is that what doesn’t kill me, leaves me with a terrible hangover when I eventually wake up.

Delysid,

Science is much better at figuring out what and why something happened than predicting the future of what and why.

But science is based on making models and validating (or falsifying) them by making predictions. Prediction is by far the most important function of science. You can’t build a bridge, computer or airplane, or design a cancer drug or whatever without being able to make accurate predictions about how they will behave in hypothetical circumstances. It’s the basis of the scientific method.

This is what climatologists do. This is also what econometrists do. I reject this method.

Uncertainty in economic models is largely due to difficulties in accurately predicting human behavior. Uncertainty in climatology, as I understand it, is largely due to complexity and the very large number of variables. Economic and climate models are relatively unreliable for entirely different reasons.
As others have pointed out, there may be uncertainty about how fast anthropogenic global warming is happening, but not whether it is happening or not.

Kelly,

you might even go as far as saying that measles and other childhood diseases are a weeder out of those not fit to live and we’re not doing ourselves a favour.

It’s hard to believe anyone would say that in public, given recent human history.

You could equally argue that those children that are unable to tolerate vaccines are not fit to live, but it would be equally obnoxious.

In other ( nearly equally obnoxious) anti-vax news:

@ TMR, TM Tex interviews Jill Rubolino, of AIM ,who is preparing for the next IACC meeting wherein she and Ms Reed, will advocate for children with ASDs who are being discriminated against by SBM: they don’t get adequate health care as any other child would**.
They will be accompanied by Drs Buie and Frye and are asking for parents to submit their own stories to both the IACC and to herself ( in case the IACC ignores them)

I imagine she’ll not speak too much about her previous efforts in getting appropriate medical care for a hospitalised autistic person.

** If her charges were true, I suppose that that would mean that doctors don’t set autistics’ broken bones or that those with bacterial infections are declined antibiotics BUT
I don’t think that’s what she’s talking about.

( TMs would probably advocate against antibiotics anyway)

Speaking of the what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger mentality, the antivaxxers are always putting down flu shots and saying the flu isn’t that bad and you are stronger for fighting it naturally, but in reality an influenza infection leaves you susceptible to other infections for some time after you get over it. It leaves you with lots of epithelial damage in your throat and interrupted mucus. That is in an uncomplicated case of influenza. A lot of people will get a cold or especially an adenovirus right after they have the flu.

Speaking of adenoviruses. I am still getting over one that was heavily circulating here. I apparently passed it to my husband who has GERD and it caused pericarditis that sent him to the emergency room. He had no other symptoms other than a little fatigue, a low grade fever he didn’t even know he had, and seroconversion which he wouldn’t know he had.
Anyway, I found that not only are adenoviruses not well understood, but that viral pericarditis isn’t well understood. Also, the hospital didn’t do a good job of explaining why it is important to take your GERD medication regularly even if you are not having symptoms and that esophageal damage can lead to semi-novel receptors becoming available to pathogens that commonly infected the esophagus.

Drugstoreemployee: “The customer wanted the vaccine and would not be seeing their doctor soon.”

He can call the doctor’s office and ask the question. We have done this often in our family, especially when the kids were young. Often it is just a conversation with a nurse who has access to the records.

My primary care doc, while not actively discouraging me from getting the shingles vaccine was dubious about it and cited an example of a patient who supposedly got shingles shortly after receiving the vaccine.

I am double-checking to see if he actually graduated from an accredited medical school.

The shingles vaccine doesn’t have a very high efficacy rate. I want to say it’s only about 51 percent. (It’s been a while since I checked the Pink Book though.)

However, given that the complications of shingles include *years* of nerve pain? Still worth it. Still less than the complications of the shot.

@Krebiozen

The whole point of the climatology ‘controversy’ is that humans are playing a major role in the system. This means that human action throws in uncertain parameters. It is more similar to econometrics than some people are admitting, in my opinion.

I read the other day that finally for the first time a climatologist accounted for the massive number of artificial pools in a global climate change model.

There are conflicting opinions just on this thread (not including me) regarding the nature of climatology.

@ Delysid:

Just clarify your position a bit for me:
do you believe that human actions ( burning fossil fuels, the Industrial Revolution, autos’ exhaust etc) over the past two centuries have had any effect globally?

I want to ascertain what you’re arguing about.

Delysid,

The whole point of the climatology ‘controversy’ is that humans are playing a major role in the system. This means that human action throws in uncertain parameters. It is more similar to econometrics than some people are admitting, in my opinion.

That seems a little disingenuous to me. Humans are playing a very predictable role in the climatic system, steadily increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide over the past few centuries. The only major uncertain parameter is exactly how much and for how long that concentration will increase. Even assuming it won’t increase at all it is clear that global warming will be a problem.

In contrast, the vagaries of human behavior can have very rapid and very unexpected effects on markets. It is a different ball-game altogether.

@lilady, I read that article Wednesday, and their weren’t as many comments, but I don’t have the mental energy to combat these crazies. I am sorry! I was so disappointed to see that ‘Alain Couvier’, thinking it was ‘our’ Alain, and it obviously wasn’t lol I just really can’t wrap my head around people like Ann Daschel. It seems fairly obvious to me that they had very different diagnoses 60+ years ago. Mild cases probably were ‘weirdos’. Extreme cases, locked up. Thank goodness now that people with autism can get help. Or the rest of us get help, understanding this condition, and not being judgemental or condescending. I really don’t understand this ‘my child has autism so he/she is broken’. Would you say the same for Diabetes? Heart Conditions? Missing a limb? Why is it just Autism?

Full of rhetorical questions today. Thank you again lilady for all that you do outside this blog. I am there with you in spirit!

@Kelly M. Bray, everything that is ‘natural’ happens for a reason, right? My cousin had a breech baby out of hospital. It died. Guess he wasn’t ‘strong enough’ to live. These children that just aren’t strong enough to fight measles, blah, they don’t matter.

I really do not understand this line of reasoning. Every child deserves to live. Every child deserves the best we adults can offer. To have a fighting chance. To not have to die from our stupidity. To benefit from generations of knowledge and science.

The Dachelbot and her flying monkey squad are deluging Emily Willingham’s latest blog about older autistic adults in Scotland:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham/2013/09/25/where-are-all-the-older-autistic-people-scotland-for-example/

It’s kind of interesting how the AoA contingent has developed a particular hatred for Emily. The reasons for it are obvious; she posts frequently about antivaccine pseudoscience and quackery to which autistic children are subjected. But I do the same thing, and the Dachelbot’s flying monkey squadron almost never shows up here at RI anymore. I rather suspect it’s because, thanks to regular commenters like lilady and others, she knows it’s a futile effort . Not only does it not phase me, but the RI crew serve as an excellent antiaircraft barrage that shoots down pretty much any of the Dachelbot’s flying monkeys before they can drop any loads (of poo) on the comment thread in such a way that it causes any damage.

The Dachelbot intentionally sends her flying monkeys after targets that haven’t built up such effective defenses over the years, such as Emily. The problem is, there are a lot more of them than there are of us; so defending every target is close to impossible. A dilemma indeed. Perhaps we need an early warning Twitter account, a Bat Signal if you will, to activate Orac’s Raiders for action. Unfortunately, I can’t do both. I can’t keep the Insolence coming in the quantity and quality to which you are accustomed and at the same time fly off to defend Emily and others under attack by the Dachelbot. That’s why I rely on my readers…

Orac, the Dachelbot is a gutless whelp, who only alerts her flying monkey squad AFTER she posts on a science blog and AFTER she departs those blogs.

The Dachelbot is my age and she “claims” she never saw a person with autism when she was growing up, or before her 27-year-old son John was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome when he was in second grade:

http://www.truth-out.org/archive/item/65006:anne-mcelroy-dachel–the-really-big-lie-about-autism

The Dachelbot, before she got her gig on AoA was involved with A-Champs, one of the original fringe groups that claimed mercury toxicities, in the form of Thimerosal in vaccines, causes autism.

It truly is amazing how John Dachel has progressed. He drives a car, plays piano and the organ, enjoys his own motorboat, has his own Facebook page and is listed as a technical advisor on Dachel’s videotaped interviews at the 2013 Autism One-Generation Rescue Conference.

I swear it is nothing short of a miracle !!! 🙂

I’ve been thinking about this for a long time..
.
but I do believe that lilady ( take a bow -btw-) is the SB antidote?/ counterpart?/ dark matter? to Ms Dachel- whose occupation appears to be alerting antivaxxers to SB articles on vaccines/ autism and to thus precipitate a deluge of pseudoscience whensoever reasonable information appears publicly, dirtying up those articles.

I wonder how much they pay her?
Ms Dachel I mean.

I have it on good authority that lilady is not paid at all.

Unless if you count the myriad tiny robin’s egg blue boxes that Lord Draconis periodically leaves off at her doorstep.
Or so I’ve heard.

( Note to anti-vaxxers:
the last sentence is what is called a “jest”, i.e. not to be taken seriously. I don’t want to find myself quoted by the MPH or another person who doesn’t get it)

@Denise

My political position on climate change is that politicians and their corresponding governments should not be involved or intervening in the economy. Society will adapt regardless of what happens. Mankind survived the Ice Age and there is no reason to think it won’t survive even the most apocalyptic doomsday predictions. Personally I think the alarmism of people like James Hansen is political fear mongering and embarrasing to science. But even if humans cause climate change, it seems to me that a good shake-up of geography and the climate will have benefits (except for the status quo of wealthy aristocrats living in their ocean-side mansions like Al Gore).

My scienctific position is that humans are probably playing a role in climate change, as we do inhabit the Earth, but I think the predictions of the quantitative models aren’t as conclusive as the powers at be want us to believe. Many scientists warned that nuclear meltdown was going to destroy the world, and now birds are nesting inside the Chernobyl sarcaphagus and wildlife is thriving in the radiation zone. How many scientists predicted that? The Earth will survive whatever we do to it.

Climatology is the worst of politicized science.

I think the reasons the Flying Monkey AntiVax Squad (FMAVS) hates Emily Willingham with such a pure burning hate is because:

1. She does not reject or fear her son’s autism
2. She rejects (with science) both the vaccine-autism myth and the fraudulent-to-dangerous “treatments” so dear to the FMAVS
but mostly because
3. She is successful, getting a science-writing gig at Forbes, writing at the respected Double X science, science editor at The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism, quoted in mainstream articles, plus the other work she does in science communication.

Liz,

I read one comment about Willingham on AofA that complained she was “sneering” in the photo that Forbes uses. She’s displaying obvious (and well-deserved) contempt toward the anti-vax nutbars, obviously.

Climatology is the worst of politicized science.
Evolution became politicised science too, when one party adopted creationism. That doesn’t make it wrong.

This whole “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” meme is a very bad strategy, IMO. Sociopaths like Delysid are the enemy, just as much as any anti-vaxers, and their bass-ackwards philosophy—which has totally destroyed the world economy and set us back a century since Reagan the Gormless was elected—can and has caused much more widespread damage. Personally, I will spend the majority of my energy combating gLibertarian shıtweasels wherever I find them. The anti-vaxers will fall by the wayside automatically.

@ Liz Ditz: Earlier today, our old pal “jen” posted two comments on AoA, congratulating the Flying Monkey AntiVax Squad (FMAVS) on their carpet bombing of Emily Willingham’s blog; now that thread is dead. I *wonder* why?

@ BattleAxe. That was spoken like a true humanitarian and intellectual.

@ herr doktor Creationism might be ridiculous, but it is not comparable to climatology. Creationism is rooted in faith in religious dogma, but belief in it has minimal effect on the rest of society. There are no forces trying to enforce “Creationism taxes and regulations to stop evolution.” Unlike rejection of vaccination, belief in creationism by itself doesn’t really affect human health if they accept the rest of evidence-based science.

I was so disappointed to see that ‘Alain Couvier’, thinking it was ‘our’ Alain, and it obviously wasn’t lol I just really can’t wrap my head around people like Ann Daschel

I keep wondering if I should blog & comment under my full name because of such situation and now that I intend to be a regular at Emily’s numerous blogs (she’s on my google+ feed). For now, I don’t have any cause for concern but I’m planning to be employed in a big IT corporation (SAP, CGI or another giant) and going forward to tell them I blog under my full name and I’m noted for my strong position in certain issues including autism.

Alain

#100 You are not correct. Creationism *does* affect acceptance of many other facets of science, including health, and creationists *do* attempt to enforce their beliefs on other facets of society–for example, by forcing changes in education and textbooks for people who are not creationists.

@ Khani Forcing changes in education in textbooks is incomparably tame to the economic and societal consequences being demanded in the name of climate change.

I despise religious dogma and I am an unapologetic defender of the theory of evolution, but you are lying to yourself. I’ve avoided commenting on Orac’s blog because of some of the political pretentiousness, despite agreeing vehemently with the idea of “science-based medicine.”

We know evolution is a fact because we study the past, but we cannot predict with accuracy the future of evolution.

We can study the fossil records, geological tables, and other aspects of this type of science, but we cannot with certainty predict the future of climate change. We can speculate and guess on thousands of parameters and pretend that the past evidence gives us the ability to predict the future, but it is the pretense of knowledge.

I have learned plenty of pseudoscience bullshit in college and dental school. (ie all of the social sciences).

Alain, I mainly just ignore the other Alain because he craves the attention and just keeps cranking out his Spam.

Creationism is rooted in faith in religious dogma, but belief in it has minimal effect on the rest of society.

Except that you can’t get good doctors in Texas now, since evolution is the bedrock of biology. If a doctor or a pharmacist can’t understand basic biology, their practice is going to suffer. We’re probably going to see the same thing in Lousiana pretty soon. And, you know, a lot of educated professionals are going to leave- either because they’re not welcome or they want their kids to have an actual scientific education.

Delysid @100:
Creationism might be ridiculous, but it is not comparable to climatology. Creationism is rooted in faith in religious dogma, but belief in it has minimal effect on the rest of society.

You are deliberately missing my point, which was not about the social impact of politicising biology vs. that of politicising climatology. My point is that it only takes one side to politicise an issue; and if the science pre-dates the political agenda, then this does not make it invalid.
For instance, genetics became politicised in the Soviet Union when Stalin decided that Lysenko’s quackery was a better fit to his goals than standard biology. That did not invalidate genetics.

In the case of climatology and AGW concerns, these pre-date their use as a political cudgel. They have been enlisted by environmentalists, and deprecated by lobbyists to the point that State governments have passed laws criminalising climate-change research, but this is irrelevant to the validity or otherwise of climatology. It was a bipartisan field until Al Gore entered his post-political career.

Creationism and rand ism both have real impacts on the community. They deny children the ability to make sense of their environment and many parents the support needed to feed them. When the Paulites are also campaigning against both abortion and the funding of contraception you know they are logically challenged.

Delysid,

My political position on climate change is that politicians and their corresponding governments should not be involved or intervening in the economy.

I think that explains your attitude to global warming; a very serious problem has arisen that demands government intervention and this challenges your political dogma. Your only choices are to pretend it isn’t happening, to minimize its consequences, or to change your political position. It is clear which you have chosen from your comments.

Sadly global warming is happening, and it is going to have devastating consequences for millions of people and for thousands of species across the planet. There are arguments about our best strategies for dealing with this, but pretending it isn’t happening, or describing this as, “a good shake-up of geography and the climate”, don’t seem very effective to me (to put it politely).

Kreboizen

Sadly global warming is happening, and it is going to have devastating consequences for millions of people and for thousands of species across the planet.

According to our Glibertarian visitor the only people who will be affected are millionaires with sea side homes like all those millionaires living a meter or two above sea level in Bangladesh. What a vile disingenuous racist asshat.

@YOYO

When the Paulites are also campaigning against both abortion and the funding of contraception you know they are logically challenged.

The goal of the Paulites is to shrink government down to the point where it can crawl up a vagina.

@Delysid:
First, the obstacles creationists have met in pushing their Bronze Age fairytales into the schools have fueled the push for charter schools and publicly-funded private schools, usually, and literally, at the expense of public schools. As an attempt to end-run the First Amendment, I think it sets a dangerous precedent.
Second, as to global warming, just what kind of threat is your threshold for government intervention? I once read a completely serious essay claiming that from a libertarian viewpoint, if a killer meteor were found heading for Earth that governments had no moral right to try and stop it.

“What does not kill me makes me stronger” happens to be a quote from Nietzsche, a problematic philosopher at best.
The antivaxers can be cured of their addiction to this saying by the simple expedient of finding someone with SSPE who’s willing to publicize their case. Find a network that will put it on the air in primetime and follow up periodically. Let people know that if they let their infant or toddler get measles, then they may lose that same child as a teen or young adult in a particularly horrifying way. Let’s see Jenny “Charlie” McCarthy and Mayim Bialik and all the other antivax idiots mealymouth their way out of that one.

@ Alain:

Mon ami, I would still be careful: it’s one thing to have a blog, as you have already, under your own name, but I would still be careful around the ‘usual suspects’ ( i.e. AoA loyalists, Jake, Bolen et al) and I wouldn’t necessarily link to the blog.

There are ways of differentiating yourself from M Couvier:
1. you make sense
2. write *de Quebec* or suchlike
3. add another descriptive word or phrase( you’re creative)

Dr Rima, of the Natural Solutions Foundations ( which see), and spouse of Stubblebine. She has appeared in several of Gary Null’s schlockumentaries and investigative reports.

The antivaxers can be cured of their addiction to this saying by the simple expedient of finding someone with SSPE who’s willing to publicize their case. Find a network that will put it on the air in primetime and follow up periodically. Let people know that if they let their infant or toddler get measles, then they may lose that same child as a teen or young adult in a particularly horrifying way. Let’s see Jenny “Charlie” McCarthy and Mayim Bialik and all the other antivax idiots mealymouth their way out of that one.

@ ORD, while not widely read by any stretch of the imagination, Catherina and I have done just that and guess what? The anti-vaxxers don’t give a toss; they just blame the victim.

@Militant Agnostic:
The Pauls, both Papa Doc and Baby Doc*, are indeed hypocrites. And Ron Paul is the man who puts the “Aryan” in “Libertarian”.

*Don’t recognize the reference? Search for it.

Old Rockin’ Dave – I’m not a Rand Paul fan, but I’m going to ask for an explanation and justification for that statement that he ‘puts the “Aryan” in “Libertarian”.’

I love the raging hypocrisy by some of the people here who pose as rational thinkers regarding science and quackery and then spout angry irrational gibberish in worshiping the religion of statism. Calling me a “racist” and other idiotic accusations and throwing shit at the wall regarding libertarianism is just emotional reactionary opposition to what is regarding as heresy of the God of government.

The unscientific and conjectural “progressive” political worldview is so similar to blind faith in quackery that all I can do is laugh.

This was a thread regarding my defense of vaccines and it devolved into pathetic ramblings about Ayn Rand, racism, Ron and Rand, climatology, and whatever hell else shit comes up to justify political prejudices.

My grammar was poor in the above comment because I deleted part of a sentence and didn’t catch the mistake before I submitted it.

@GuineaPig. So you are saying that someone cant’ be a good doctor and believe in creationism at the same time? The arrogance of that comment is unbelievable. The principles of evolution versus creationsim plays a negligible role in modern medicine. Was Ron Paul an incompetant OB/GYN because of his religious beliefs? Is Ben Carson a quack in pediatric neurosurgery because of his Seventh Day Adventism religious beliefs?

Give me a break.

@M O’B: Actually, I said it was Papa Doc, not Baby Doc. But here are some links:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/President/2011/1229/Racist-newsletter-timeline-What-Ron-Paul-has-said
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/12/27/395391/fact-check-ron-paul-personally-defended-racist-newsletters/
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/02/15/10-quotes-that-make-ron-paul-sound-racist/
If you do a search, the links go on and on. After defending obnoxious quotes from his newsletters, he more recently denied writing them, claiming he never read the newsletters that all had “Ron Paul” in their names. If that’s true, he wouldn’t make a very good president, would he?

@ Krebiozen #73

I agree with you about the scientific method of predicting and then experimenting to prove or falsify (OBVIOUSLY) which is exactly why climatology is far different from a field such as cancer research (which is far more repeatable and controllable than the study of the climate of entire planet).

As an example look at Cox inhibitors. In theory they seemed so straight forward until the unexpected cardiovascular side effects starting occurring. Or on the flip side look at a drugs like rifampicin that unexpectedly treat conditions like Parkinson’s.

Some of the monoclonal antibodies that theoretically had the potential to be ‘magic bullets’ turned out to be a disaster

I’m not a climatologist, but it seems inevitable (and obvious) that we have a far better understanding of biochemistry than climatology just based on the nature of the field and the scientific community is still terrible at predicting outcomes.

Also, just as conjecture, it seems that many of the people who go into climatology do it with the intention of ‘saving the planet.’ I can’t help but speculate that much of climatology is conducted with the intention of proving already preconceived notions about anthropogenic climate change.

Knowing a number of climatologists, I’d call that an insult – they just as interested in the hard science, regardless of what the outcome is…it just so happens that what they are finding is pointing to a growing problem…something that we all have an interest in making sure is resolved in such a way as to not cause overall hardship for the planet (and ourselves).

Krebiozen @112, and Lawrence @127 – – Excellent posts. Krebiozen, especially, I think your analysis is remarkably insightful and exactly right.

I’m hoping to rebrand libertarianism as “The New Irresponstibilty”. Most devotees seem to deny that the social contract even exists.

#125 Delysid… you yourself brought up climate change on this thread.

Not everyone here is “progressive,” and in fact there is a wide spectrum of political views here.

@Old Rockin’ Dave

Quit being an asshole. You are throwing shit to the wall and using blatant logical fallacies to make points that are irrelevant to the discussion. Just because someone is wrong about X does not make them wrong about Y.

You posted that thread that I posted on the DailyPaul about Ron Paul’s opinion on vaccines, but did you see my opinion of it?

“Ron Paul gave a medical fallacy here, I should add. I adore the man, but I strongly believe he is wrong in his claim about “giving too many vaccines too soon and overwhelming the immune system.” Our immune systems are exposed to tens of thousands (and greater) pathogens at any given moment. Our adaptive immune system can create practically infinite combinations of antibodies. 5 vaccines at once might sound scary, but that is nothing compared to what the immune system can handle. If anything it is better to combine vaccines so that less excipients and less doses are given. I agree fully with Ron Paul about voluntaryism, however.”

Quit trying to make me guilty be association.

@palindrom #131

Branding libertarianism as “the new irresponsibility” is beyond ridiculously dishonest and the exact opposite of the worldview. Libertarians believe in voluntary relationships and personal responsibility for one’s own actions. What kind of schizophrenic mind games?

The “social contract” does not mean that the government can do whatever it wants because you say so. This is a primitive, anti-intellectual position. With the possible exception in the name of God, there is no greater destruction that has occurred to mankind than in the name of the “greater good.”

The greater good is an arbitrary, imaginary concept that is inherently undefinable. My idea of the greater good is not the same as your idea of the greater good. This is exactly why collectivism is so dangerous. No one should be forced into abiding by your version of the greater good just because you obtain political power. That is a savage belief system.

*What kind of schizophrenic mind games are you pulling to smear the ideology as the exact opposite of what it is?

Delysid: So you are saying that someone cant’ be a good doctor and believe in creationism at the same time? The arrogance of that comment is unbelievable. The principles of evolution versus creationsim plays a negligible role in modern medicine.

See ‘underpinning of biology.’ If you don’t understand why a doctor who doesn’t understand biology, who can’t figure out that bacteria can adapt and evolve might not be a very good doctor, then I can’t help you. Also, a doctor who is very religious might end up losing patients because they can’t treat them appropriately- see the case of Savita Halappanaver, which could easily happen in the States.

Was Ron Paul an incompetant OB/GYN because of his religious beliefs?

Er, probably. I’m surprised he ever had any patients, since I’d hope they’d flee the waiting room once they realized how much contempt seeps out his pores for anyone who’s not a WASP. I’m even more surprised that he managed not to kill anyone by enforcing his beliefs on them. And this just lends credence to my theory about Ob/Gyns.

Is Ben Carson a quack in pediatric neurosurgery because of his Seventh Day Adventism religious beliefs?

Probably. Never ran into him before, so I’d hold off on judgement, but I’d be surprised if he was any good at all.

And finally, unfettered religion escaping into the social arena is never a good idea. Thanks to your side, kids are being miseducated- if the next generation is any indication, India, China and other places that have almost grown out of religion will eat our lunch, and Texas will soon be hosting witch hunts.

Adaption is not the same thing as evolution from one species to another. Again, to emphasize, I am an atheist and far from a creationist, but you are misrepresenting their viewpoint.

It has been said by opponents that no one could defeat Ron Paul in is district because he was the OB/GYN for half of the women in two counties and they loved him. You have no basis whatsoever for the claim that “I’m surprised he ever had any patients” besides your own delusions. What evidence do you have that he was anything besides a competent physician?

“Thanks to my side?”

You mean my viewpoint, that as an atheist, people should be free to believe in whatever religion they want and that belief in creationism is totally compatible with the practice mainstream medicine? Are you a moron?

Texas will soon be hosting witch hunts?

Do you have any proof for that or are you just fear-mongering. I find it hilarious that you are commenting on this blog and declaring your own alarmist superstitious speculation.

Wacky progressive fear-mongering is the fraternal twin of science quackery. I wish you could laugh at yourself like I do, but unfortunately progressives/socialists/American liberals are unable to recognize their own hypocrisies.

@ Rockin Dave

I just read that link you posted called “Why I am not a libertarian.”

Thanks for the laughs. It was written so childishly that I’m suspicious that it was a libertarian writing satire. It said, paraphrasing, “Proof that the free-market doesn’t work is that people vote in terrible politicians.”

The head-slapping ridiculousness of this argument should be self-explanatory.

People are bad so we need a government of people are bad so we need a government of people are bad so we need a government of people are bad so we need a government of people are bad so we need

Look, pea-brain, adaptation goes hand in hand with evolution. In fact adaptation causes evolution- ever heard of the Galapagos finches.

You mean my viewpoint, that as an atheist, people should be free to believe in whatever religion they want and that belief in creationism is totally compatible with the practice mainstream medicine?

I agree with the first one, but not the second. Belief in creationism undermines the very underpinnings of medicine, and ruins the doctor’s practice, since their beliefs become incompatible with medicine and in some cases, their patient’s lives.

As for Ron Paul..well, have you ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome? If he was the only ob/gyn in two counties, no wonder no one ever uttered a squeak. Plus, most women are totally brainwashed down there- they believe they merit every bad thing that happens to them because that’s what their pastor said.

Dude, I studied history. I know what fundamentalism leads to. You should crack open a history book sometime, instead of Ayn Rand’s terrible crimes against the English language.

Once again, you are trying to portray me as guilty by association. I have stated several times that I disagree with Ron Paul on creationism and a few other things, though I agree with him on the vast majority of other issues and the overall voluntaryist worldview. I’ve disagreed with quite a few things blogged by Orac, mostly involving politics, but I’m a staunch defender of science-based medicine. Believe it or not no two people agree on everything.

I know progressives love to circlejerk the meme about libertarians being Ayn Rand cultists, but I have only read one of her books (Anthem) years ago and I couldn’t even give you a summary of the book. Do you have a copy of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth on your nightstand? It’s only fair to assume that that is your favorite book, right?

And you think I have Stockholm Syndrome regarding Ron Paul? Weird! I don’t remember him holding me hostage. Clearly you are a genius and a god of science, so I guess I must be wrong about voluntarily doing my own research over the years and Ron Paul must have brainwashed me or something.

And I didn’t know that “most women are totally brainwashed down there” and that “they believe they merit every bad thing that happens to them because that is what their pastor said.”

I apologize. I did not realize that you have met most of Ron Paul’s OB/GYN patients and that you have such a deep and thorough knowledge of the beliefs of the women of Eastern Texas. You must be one hell of a cultured intellectual.

Quacks make claims with no evidence, but you sir are a true scientist and intellectual and you clearly only state facts. You are far superior to quacks. I sincerely apologize for questioning any of your claims because I now see that you are truly a master of undeniable facts.

lol

I’m not a climatologist

That much is glaringly obvious. However, you seem to think you know more about climatology than the people who actually are climatologists and have studied the field for years. You have the same arrogance of ignorance as the anti-vaxers with their “Google PhDs”. Your arrogant anti-scientific anti-intellectualism shines through.

@Delysid, you’re new here. A word to the wise: it is pointless to try to reason with politicalguineapig. You will note that she (not he) declares that every single doctor in Texas is a creationist, on the basis of no evidence whatsoever (#109: “Except that you can’t get good doctors in Texas now, since evolution is the bedrock of biology. If a doctor or a pharmacist can’t understand basic biology, their practice is going to suffer. “). That kind of “thought” is, alas, typical of her.

Google for “rapey” on this site for an introduction to her.

@Delysid #128

I agree with you about the scientific method of predicting and then experimenting to prove or falsify (OBVIOUSLY) which is exactly why climatology is far different from a field such as cancer research (which is far more repeatable and controllable than the study of the climate of entire planet).

I was responding to your claims that science is better at explaining things than predicting things. The point is that if a model is truly explanatory it will be good at predicting the future as well. Over the past few decades models of the climate have been very successful at predicting increases in average global temperatures and in predicting the effects of volcano eruptions.

As data become more accurate and models are refined I expect them to become more and more accurate. It seems vanishingly unlikely that this entire field will prove to be mistaken.

Climatology is looking at one huge complex system with billions of variables, which is why it is difficult to accurately predict the weather more than a few days in advance. However global warming has been happening for centuries and we understand it very well in terms of how greenhouse gases behave, and that if more heat enters a system than leaves it, it is going to get hotter. As far as I am aware no other model explains the warming we have seen over the past 30 years. There is some very basic physics underpinning this that isn’t going to suddenly change and surprise us.

It may be difficult to predict the precise consequences of global warming, in terms of local weather conditions, since there are likely to be complex systems that will be disrupted in unpredictable ways, as we have already seen. But global warming itself? I think we can be very sure indeed about this.

As an example look at Cox inhibitors. In theory they seemed so straight forward until the unexpected cardiovascular side effects starting occurring. Or on the flip side look at a drugs like rifampicin that unexpectedly treat conditions like Parkinson’s.

Some of the monoclonal antibodies that theoretically had the potential to be ‘magic bullets’ turned out to be a disaster.

Seriously? Because some drugs have unexpected side effects, scientists might be wrong in stating that if you put more heat into a system than comes out it is going to get warmer? That’s a very large stretch indeed for a multitude of reasons.

I’m not a climatologist, but it seems inevitable (and obvious) that we have a far better understanding of biochemistry than climatology just based on the nature of the field and the scientific community is still terrible at predicting outcomes.

Perhaps you aren’t very familiar with biochemistry. The more I learn about it the more I realize that don’t understand, despite having worked in clinical biochemistry for decades, and there is a huge amount of complexity and detail that we still don’t understand (look at some of the recent research for example). That doesn’t mean that we don’t have a good understanding of the basics.

For example if you give a patient lots of IV sodium and she doesn’t excrete it in her urine, her serum sodium is going to increase. It would be silly to suggest that some unknown mechanism could suddenly make the sodium disappear, just as it would be silly to suggest that some unknown mechanism could suddenly make all the CO2 or all the heat disappear, stop CO2 from acting as a greenhouse gas, or otherwise stop the Earth from heating up.

Also, just as conjecture, it seems that many of the people who go into climatology do it with the intention of ‘saving the planet.’ I can’t help but speculate that much of climatology is conducted with the intention of proving already preconceived notions about anthropogenic climate change.

I don’t believe that’s true. The current consensus on global warming has only formed over the past 30 years, and many climatologists have been in the field for considerably longer than that. For example James Hansen (who you accused of alarmism and political fear-mongering and who you described as an embarrassment to science earlier) was writing about the effects of greenhouse gases on Venus in the late 60s and 70s and appears to have been led to his opinions and fears about anthropogenic warming by the science and not by any ideology.

You on the other hand seem to me to have been led to conclusions that contradict those of thousands of scientists by your political ideology. The evidence for anthropogenic global warming is simply overwhelming and I am truly puzzled how any intelligent person can look at it and come to the same conclusions as you appear to have.

Krebiozen, for some reason I am imagining palm trees waving in the breezes alongside the Thames, making it look just like the Embarcadero, New Year’s Eve in NYC in shirt sleeves and visiting Montreal for winter carnival without freezing to death… is this wrong?

In other antivax news:

Jake Crosby ( @ Autism Investigated) castigates Ginger Taylor who now admits that Jake criticised Mark because of his autism. She is a bigot and spreads her opinion far and wide via facebook: ” your judgment on this is compromised because of your autism”.

At another time, ( via e-mail) Mark himself “accused” Jonathan Mitchell of “irrational thinking” because of autism.

Both Mark and Ginger have discredited Jake because of his autism.

Thus the Canary Party- which Ginger and Mark represent- should be “shut out of the congressional autism hearings”.

And who, pray tell, SHOULD appear there?

@ TBruce:

How many factions and individuals with complicated loyalties are involved in this imbroglio anyway?

Jake also mentions Barry Segal. Then there’s Hooker, Andy, various Canaries… BOLEN!

I am placing a bet that Jake, with his newly minted MPH, thinks he should be the ONE True Testifier sitting at the right hand of Andy.

We should sell scorecards.

Free tickets for the first five comments posted on R.I.

I’ll bring the popcorn. What a combination Jake and Ginger make…both are pugnacious and both can’t resist stirring up the sh!t.

@Delysid:
I did miss your comment on Papa Doc’s vaccination views. But as for questions of guilt by association, libertarianism, large and small ‘L’, had already been brought up here in a wider context, and showing his bigotry (and/or incompetence at running newsletters), hypocrisy, and lies is more than fair game.
You think Professor Dutch is a satirist, but you offer no counter-arguments. While detailed discussion is taking things way beyond the original topic here, I’d like to know even a little of what you disagree with. Your paraphrase is a childish reductio ad absurdum. I would also suggest you read what he has to say about liberalism and conservatism. You might also learn from his comments about climate change. While he is not a climatologist, he is a geologist, and climatology and geology do intersect at a number of points, as they do with physics and chemistry, in both of which a geologist must have some solid grounding (pun intended).
I might not be so concerned about the impact of the Pauls’ creationist views on their medical practice and political views if it was a belief held in isolation. But creationists tend to be Biblical literalists. Does their literalism, or their interpretation of what the Bible “literally” says, affect their other views? Do they really believe in people living 900+ years? Do they see the “sons of Ham” (i.e., black people) as cursed to be subservient to other races? Do they share in the New Testament condemnations of Jews? Biblical claims are also being advanced against any kind of social welfare program. How far do Papa Doc and Baby Doc subscribe to these views? Does it affect the way they look at different patients and colleagues?
Fundamentalist views on global warming were recently expressed by at least one lawmaker who claimed that sea level rise couldn’t happen because his god promised not to repeat a Noachian flood. How much do they buy into that one?

OMG…Jake is stating that Ginger and the entire Canary Party should be shut out of the Vaccine hearing that Jennifer Larson paid for.

“Now added to the long and growing list of reasons Canary Party should be shut out of the congressional autism hearings permanently is Vice President Ginger Taylor’s admitted bigotry against people with autism. Her willingness to dismiss them for their views is characteristic of the dismissals by Canary Party and affiliated groups pertaining to criticism of their activities within the months since the November hearing. Such bigotry compromises Canary Party’s entire leadership.”

@Denice Walter:
“for some reason I am imagining palm trees waving in the breezes alongside the Thames, making it look just like the Embarcadero, New Year’s Eve in NYC in shirt sleeves and visiting Montreal for winter carnival without freezing to death… is this wrong?”
Probably. Think of London inundated in spite of the Thames Flood Barrier. Think of no more Venice, New Orleans, Miami, St. Petersburg. Think of a hundred million Bangladeshis forced into India and Burma. Think of Times Square at New Year’s Eve only a few blocks from the Atlantic and drenched by a nor’easter.
To simplify greatly, weather on Earth is the result of mixing air, heat, and water unevenly. Add more heat and the energy that drives weather events is greater, meaning more extreme weather. The increased heat also melts millions of cubic miles of ice and permafrost, adding yet more water to the mix. That’s leaving out a few other elements like sequestered CO2 in the permafrost, loss of snowpack, etc. Higher temperatures may or may not send palm trees north, but it would certainly send such lovelies as alligators, killer bees, fire ants, crazy ants, banana slugs, and cane toads northwards.
A sea level rise of a few centimeters or inches doesn’t sound like much until you realize that the water in the oceans isn’t distributed evenly like the water in a resting glass; it gets bunched up by currents, tides, winds, rain, storm surges, tsunamis, and so forth (The Pacific Ocean next to Panama is normally about fifty feet higher than the Caribbean on the other side.).

I think the core of Mr. Crosby’s argument is valid.

Ginger is saying that his actions are invalid because Jake doesn’t have the “theory of mind” and “executive functioning” to see that his actions are causing pain to his ex allies. She didn’t say “theory of mind” or “executive functioning” but that’s what she’s relying upon

In other words, she’s substituting a stereotype of autism for the personality of someone she’s worked closely with for some time, in order to dismiss his actions.

“Theory of mind” is controversial enough on it’s own. But Jake doesn’t need theory of mind to understand that he’s pissing people off. They are telling him directly.

As to the idea that he can’t understand the longer term fallout (damage to “good work”)

“I WANT to believe that being this cruel, that making these poor choices are because of your autism, because you do not see the extent of the damage that you are doing to good people doing good work, and NOT because you actually realize how much harm you are doing.”

To me this reads that she doesn’t think that Jake can reason, doesn’t have executive function
http://www.ncld.org/types-learning-disabilities/executive-function-disorders/what-is-executive-function

It’s very clear that Mr. Crosby understands that what he is doing could have a major impact on the way the Canary Party operates. He states that he wants them to change. Ginger frames this as “how much harm you are doing” rather than face head on the actual criticisms he his making.

She’s clearly putting autistics in the back seat of advocacy.

Now–there’s the HUGE hypocrisy angle of all of this. They’ve accepted Mr. Crosby’s hit pieces for years, but they don’t think he has the executive functioning to understand the consequences of his actions? If she and the others at AoA and the Canary Party believe this, they were using Jake as a tool. Eiither they (CP, AoA and others) lack the executive functioning to realize the harm Mr. Crosby was doing to his reputation and his future employability, or they felt it was OK for them to use him as a tool, burning his bridges, screwing up his future and other fallout which she believes Jake is incapable of understanding. How exactly did they handle “informed consent” for Jake’s hit pieces? “OK, Jake, this is really good. I understand that you are incapable of understanding that this will hurt your ability to seek employment in the future, but we have worked that out and decided that the good outweighs the bad. Don’t worry your little autistic head, there. We’ve got your back”

This is bad on so many levels.

Re: lilady’s comments

Now added to the long and growing list of reasons Canary Party should be shut out of the congressional autism hearings permanently is Vice President Ginger Taylor’s admitted bigotry against people with autism. Her willingness to dismiss them for their views is characteristic of the dismissals by Canary Party

Is it wrong to smirk?

Matt, I think that is an excellent synopsis. Though I still can’t feel sorry for him considering the bigotry he has heaped upon other autists and his vile attacks on anyone who has criticised him.

We are only reading the snippets of Jake’s communications with Ginger Taylor, that Jake wants to reveal to garner sympathy for himself. His past behaviors (personal and cyber-stalking and libelous posts on AoA), have nothing to do with his ASD diagnosis.

So no…I’m don’t feel empathy for Jake being being ostracized by his handlers at AoA. Time for Jake to grow up now

@ Old Rocking Dave:

It was tongue-in-cheek:
I know perfectly well what havoc a sea level rise of even 1 m would do to cities on the coast. My ancestors came from the waterside, I live near the water ( albeit on a cliff- so I never get flooded but areas nearby will) and visit various bays, shores,rivers and have seen what storms can do.

@ Matt Carey:

I sometimes doubt that many of these people have the executive fx’ing themselves ( self-evaluation etc) in order to imagine what their own actions and written ideas have on THEIR own futures – let alone Jake’s on his.

Delysid :Actually, never read An Inconvenient Truth. I prefer science fiction. I like how you accuse me of making assumptions, when you then proceed to make numerous assumptions about me.
As for women in Texas-well, I can’t fathom why they would stay in a state that hates them, with legislators and men that hate them, if they weren’t either brainwashed or masochists.

Delysid: I’m a staunch defender of science-based medicine.

Yeah? Then why are you defending creationism and faith healing? Chose one or the other and quit talking out of both sides of your mouth, hypocrite. And cut out the lol thing, what are you, seventeen?

Complete text of the FB exchange going on:

Jacob Lawrence Crosby:
Canary Party VP: “your judgement is compromised on this because of your autism”
http://www.autisminvestigated.com/canary-party-vp-autism/

Canary Party: “your judgement is compromised…because of your autism”
http://www.autisminvestigated.com
Canary Party Vice President: “your judgement is compromised on this because of your autism”
Like · · Share · 6 hours ago ·
Kelly Dunham likes this.

Michael Casadevall: Its amazing to me how people can write off something that they disagree with because they like who wrote it.

Know as the Assoication Fallacy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy

Also known as the “Hilter ate sugar” arguement. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HitlerAteSugar
6 hours ago · Edited · Like · 2

Michael Casadevall: That should be “don’t like who wrote it”. Note to self: don’t try and be smart before coffee.
6 hours ago · Like · 2

Jacob Lawrence Crosby: Exactly Michael, it’s so much easier to come up with excuses for writing people off than to engage them in any serious dialogue.
6 hours ago · Like · 2

Kelly Dunham: Good for you, Jake, for doing this. If someone had stated these things to her about her kid, or said ANYTHING derogatory about him, she (and the rest of the CP followers) would be up in arms.
4 hours ago via mobile · Like · 2

Kelly Dunham: And Michael . . . Never EVER try to be smart before coffee. It never works.
4 hours ago via mobile · Like · 1

Brian Hooker: Any such comment regarding individuals with developmental disabilities should widely condemned. We all have impaired judgment and myopic viewpoints in some way, shape or form. I am not less “impaired” than Jake just because my own “issues” are not public (in the way that Jake has bravely and openly discussed his). We all have issues and carry biases, period. To classify a bias based on a “disability” is indeed chilling.
2 hours ago · Edited · Like · 4

Lujene Greene Clark: Jake, this is what I posted on my fb wall. You may use it unedited as you see fit. I agree this Brian Hooker’s post above wholeheartedly.

For those of you writing me regarding Jake’s post in Autism Investigated, please understand that I am in no way associated with Autism Investigated and have no control over its content.

I am responsible for what I communicate, not the communications of others.

However, having said that, does not diminish the fact that Jake is TELLING THE TRUTH. Yes, it makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Me, included. Heck, this whole mess makes me sick which is why I left the autism advocacy community ages ago. It is a vicious, back-stabbing, Jr. High cliquish mess! But, it is the truth and he has the right to express that in any forum he chooses. How you receive and interpret his words are between you and Jake. He is a meticulous researcher, dedicated advocate, intelligent and committed to the truth. His only agenda is to remove all obstacles to ending this travesty. You may disagree with his method; granted, it may not be how you or I would address the situation but don’t judge the messenger because you don’t like his message. He is frustrated, and rightfully so. Much like we get frustrated when
parents deny and ignore our warnings about vaccines because it makes them uncomfortable to see the ugly underbelly of the public health paradigm. That analogy hits a little too close to home, huh?

I agreed to turn over my research from NoMercury to Jake because I needed to walk away from all the foolishness (much like what Jake has described for months) for several reasons, not the least of which was Alan’s death and the ugliness much like Jake describes. However, knowing the information I had compiled (thousands upon thousands of documents) was so important, I wanted it to go to someone with the drive, intelligence and research skills to finish the vital work that Alan and I started over 10 years ago. I chose Jake…and I stand by that decision which has no connection whatsoever with his Autism Investigated project.

If you don’t like something *I* communicate then, of course, feel free to take that up with me. Don’t judge me by other’s words, opinions or actions. If you don’t like something Jake communicates, then address your concerns to him. He is an intelligent, principled young man capable of expressing and defending his own observations.

Many of you say we need to pull together because there is strength in numbers…which sounds great in theory. In that case, why not join with Autism Speaks because they have lots of money & people? See my point? I would rather stand alone and fight against the lies and self-serving agenda of Autism Speaks that is harming our community than compromise my integrity just to go along to get along. Which, in essence, is what you are telling Jake to do. Jake’s battle is no different and no less noble than our battles against Autism Speaks. HE IS TELLING THE TRUTH!!

We each are ultimately responsible for our own words and actions…including Mark, Jennifer, Ginger, et al.
about an hour ago via mobile · Like · 2

Ginger Taylor: Jake, I have responded to you in the comments several hours ago. Will you be approving my comments?
about an hour ago · Like

Brian Hooker: The CDC, WHO and Gates Foundation are working hard to stratify the U.S. population (as well as other countries) based on what certain individuals cannot do and where their weaknesses lie. It sickens me every time I see a company that wants to hire individuals with autism due to their ability to do repetitive work (What an insult!). By pointing out “flaws” in the thinking of individuals with specific challenges, we are playing into the hands of those who want there to be “thrifty, disabled working class” and those who advocate the poisoning of children for no other good reason. We can prevent a Brave New World scenario but it has to start within our own community.
about an hour ago · Like · 1

Denyse, I thought you were kidding, but then “one never knows, do one?” Actually, you put me in mind of Jill Sobule’s song “Manhattan in January”.
Here’s a link to the lyrics:
http://lyrics.wikia.com/Jill_Sobule:Manhattan_In_January
I love her and her music, and her “I Kissed a Girl” not only preceded Katy Perry’s song by some years, it’s a much better song.
She is also very much pro-vaccine. By means of this blog and its commenters she was alerted that a fundraiser she was to perform at included Renfield, make that Wakefield, she withdrew in horror. (https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2010/07/14/say-it-aint-so-jill-jill-sobule-performs/)

Alain #102, I’d say proceed with caution. I have been a target of antivaxxers for years, though I am just an innocuous parent of an autistic adult. They have tried to interfere in my relationships with work colleagues and even my office landlord! Last year one of my colleagues at work got a cranky letter from Jake Crosby’s Mom Nicole trying to get me in trouble somehow. Although the kookiness of these communications speaks for itself, it’s annoying for other people to get them just because they know you. Just something to keep in mind.

Earlier today I had a much longer reply to Delysid half-finished when my browser decided that, since I switched tabs to get a URL, I wouldn’t mind having the page completely reloaded and everything dumped from the editbox when I got back. So, I’m not going to try to recreate the whole thing; plus, someone’s already pointed out that PGP’s views are hers alone and do NOT represent the rest of us (hell, a good 85% of the time, her views and the conclusions she thinks it’s okay to jump to leave us speechless and flabbergasted) so I’m not going to repeat that.

I will just say that even if Delysid doesn’t see a connection between his denial of climate change and others’ denial of evolution, he’s using one of their favorite argument tropes, namely “If you don’t know the answers in the level of detail that I specify, then you can’t really say you know the answers at all.” “Why, yes, you claim that global climate change is sure to result from all the greenhouse gasses we’ve been putting into the atmosphere – but do you have a model that accounts for every possible relevant factor, so that we know exactly how much the temperature is going to rise on our current course? What? You say there’s too much uncertainty to make a model that predicts the exact course? Why, then, how can you even be certain that there’ll be any rise in temperature, if you don’t know it exactly?? Why, I read the other day that until recently, the models used to predict climate change didn’t even take artificial pools into effect! Unless you can tell me that you have fully accounted for the effect of artificial pools on global temperature, I’m sure that your models must be so far from reality that they’re no more than guesswork!” No, those aren’t the words he used, but that’s the gist of the arguments he’s been making: that until science can say “we have every aspect of global climate change known to nine decimal places”, he can afford to ignore what is already known.

But, really, this is nothing more than the famous creationist “god of the gaps” argument in a new frame. “You scientists can’t explain how sea-going creature A evolved into land-going creature C, so I get to believe that the intervention of a deity must have been involved! Oh, you mean, you not only figured out how flippers could have strengthened and become legs, you actually went looking and found the fossil of the amphibious transitional form B? Well… you haven’t explained how A became B, or how B became C, so I get to believe that both those transitions required divine intervention!”

In fact, since Delysid does understand the value of vaccines, and advocates for them (for which I do give him credit and thanks, regardless of what other differences we have) I wonder how horrified he’d be if he were to go looking in our archives and find how many times our troll of yesteryear “Augustine” used to employ the exact same trope to argue against vaccines. On more than one occasion, Augustine claimed that you could never say that vaccines had saved any lives, unless you could point to a specific person and show scientific proof that if that specific person had not been vaccinated against the disease, a) they would have caught it, and b) it would have been fatal to them. I’m sure that Delysid wouldn’t agree with that, but what’s the difference between Augustine saying “You don’t have absolute proof that person X would have caught measles and died from it if they hadn’t been vaccinated, therefore, I get to believe that vaccines have never saved anyone’s life” and Delysid saying “The current models of global climate change don’t yet account for every single variable, so I get to believe that some one of those unaccounted-for variables handily counteracts the very clear effect produced by all the rest“?

@ Anne, Denice, lilady,

Thanks for your advices and warning, I shall stay semi-anonymous.

Alain

@ Old Rocking Dave:

Her song is hilarious … and meaningful.
But now I’m gonna be picturing surfers catching waves on Park Ave.
( and maybe yacht races in Soho**)

** SoHo for purists.

Thank you for your post lilady,

The concerns listed on the CDC site are on the forms the customer fills out before they can be vaccinated. Even if the Pharmacist had a reason to think this customer would be one that should not take the vaccine (the customer has not been to our store for 15 years and she never even bothered to look him up in the system) wouldn’t she be duty bound to go forward and have him fill out the paperwork that asks them if they have these conditions?
She told him he had built up an immunity against it. He had it twenty years ago.
He ends up leaving our store, and if anyone in his circle asks him about the vaccine he will share his story with them. Don’t need it according to ….

In late breaking news…

Ginger shows up at Jake’s ‘ Autism Investigated’ and they uh… converse. Then they’re joined by John Best.

Sometimes even *I* can not adequately describe ( nor would I want to) anti-vax antics- they need to be read in the original.

A comment from Ginger on Jake’s blog:

You have a disability. The hallmarks of that disability are difficulty in seeing what is appropriate behavior, perseverating on things, difficulty putting yourself in another’s shoes, not correctly interpreting other’s emotions or intentions. I see all of that at play here. That does not remotely mean that I think that you should not be tolerated or that you should be dismissed out of hand.
[snip]
If your disability was physical, and I pointed out that you could not run fast because you had only one leg, and that should be taken into account when evaluating your physical activities, that is not bigotry. That is just a factual reporting of the impacts of a disability. So how is my opinion that your autism is impacting your perceptions/choices here bigotry?

Riiiiight, and never did she or any of Jake’s other handlers ever consider this while he was writing his hit pieces, stalking “enemies” and provoking interference with peoples’ employment. Suddenly his autism clouds his judgement but she’s not engaging in bigotry no no. The rest of her comment is a disgusting, manipulative mind fu@k of Jake.

@Drugstoreemployee: I’m glad I was able to answer some of your questions about the Shingles vaccine…having a history of shingles 20 years ago, is not a reason to avoid the vaccine now.

@ Anne # 160: Jake’s mommy wrote a letter to your work colleague?

Jake’s in good hands now that his new BFF J.B. is posting at him …it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

“The hallmarks of that disability are difficulty in seeing what is appropriate behavior”

What’s her excuse?

@ I Rony Meter:

Sssssshhh! We’re not supposed to be saying that! Similar observations have landed Brian Deer into trouble.

But more seriously, if you look closely at how many of the regulars ( @ AoA or TMR) behave and explain ‘how the world works’, you’d be hard pressed to see where Jake is so very different from the mode- he’s just an extreme example of it- its full flower, so to speak.

They advocate self-serving, evidence-free theories of autism
They manufacture unlikely conspiracy theories
They place their own (quasi) knowledge above experts’
They harass SB scientists and governmental officials
( altho’ more subtley than Jake does)
They play act in public ( see Congressional meeting tapes/ esp Katie Wright)

They are in short, not paragons of either realism or diplomacy. They slander and libel scientists who do have realistic information. They e-mail critics’ employers. They attempt to broadcast their own ideas to influence parents without any thought of the consequences for other people ( i.e. infants, the immuno-compromised). And they used someone ( Jake) who was not quite as savvy as they, the leaders, were, because he could be beguiled into doing the more outlandish things that they wouldn’t stoop to themselves that would serve their puposes.

Now, they have another youngster, Natalie, who they do not use as an attack dog but rather as a ‘motion artist” ( or whatever she calls herself) in the creation of video propagand. However there, it is more a case of mutual use ( they use her, she uses them). In truth, Jake probably also though that he was using them as a staircase to fame as a journalist ( or whatever he calls himself). He could neither predict nor understand their MOs and they probably didn’t entirely comprehend or predict him, thus the conflict.

“I can’t help but speculate that much of climatology is conducted with the intention of proving already preconceived notions about anthropogenic climate change.”

There were climatologists before climate change. That’s how we noticed it in the first place.

As to more recent additions to the field, I can tell you from personal experience that they are mainly there at the behest of the insurance industry.

That climate change is real is not even the question any more. Now they are modelling who will get hit the hardest, how, and where. Our clients run computer models to predict risk of (crop-wrecking) heatwaves and drought, increased flooding, sea level rise, etc.

Risk modelling is what the insurance industry relies on. Huge money is involved, and they are generally extremely good at what they do. They spare no expense on the best people and the most powerful equipment, and generally make pots of cash.

For them, this is purely business and risk assessment. Tree-hugging hippies they ain’t.

Mark,

It may be a flawed short-cut, but I have a rule of thumb that if the insurance companies are taking something seriously, so should I. Their whole business is risk mitigation. People tend to think of them as being about avoiding paying, but if they never paid out, they’d be run out of town on a rail; it’s actually more a matter of making sure they take in enough in premiums to cover the claims and still turn a profit. And to do that, they have to be able to accurately predict the claims they’ll get.

Mark,

It may be a flawed short-cut, but I have a rule of thumb that if the insurance companies are taking something seriously, so should I. Their whole business is risk mitigation. People tend to think of them as being about avoiding paying, but if they never paid out, they’d be run out of town on a rail; it’s actually more a matter of making sure they take in enough in premiums to cover the claims and still turn a profit. And to do that, they have to be able to accurately predict the claims they’ll get.

Lilady, indeed, Jake’s mom wrote to someone in the law firm where I practice. She accused me of making her look bad to potential customers and thereby harming her cash flow. Or something like that. It was odd, but not as strange as the one to my building office accusing me of terrorism. I have been in practice for a long time, people know me well, and nobody takes this stuff seriously. But for somebody just starting out, I wouldn’t ‘t recommend taking on this kind of attention.

@ Mark:
@ Calli:

I would also tend to take it seriously when Forbes’ asks if there is ” A Dutch Solution for New York’s Storm Surge Woes?”
( last year, by John McQuaid)

Anne: Sheesh. Jake’s mom (among many others) makes an fool of herself in public and then blames someone else when she gets called on it.

I’m no scholar, but I’m unaware that there’s anything in the US Constitution or any of the amendments that guarantees freedom from getting one’s pwecious widdle feewings hurt.

Mankind survived the Ice Age and there is no reason to think it won’t survive even the most apocalyptic doomsday predictions.

I don’t share your optomism (that’s intended to be a polite way of saying “I call BS”). There’s no reason to think we as a species are immune to extinction events.

In fact, there’s evidence that we’ve narrowly avoided it in the past, a genetic bottleneck occurring about 50K years ago consistent with the world’s entire human population declining to roughly 5 to 7 K individuals.

Hominids been around for a blink of an eye on a geologic scale–recall the dinosaurs were the dominant terrestrial species for more than 100 million years. That wasn’t sufficient to ensure they’d survive “even the most apocalyptic doomsday predictions”.

@JGC – that “bottleneck” is now assumed to have occurred during the last “Super-Volcano” eruption….of which there are a few dozen that have been located around the world (Yellowstone now being the most famous).

We are one large catastrophe away from seeing large segments of the population die-off & it wouldn’t be very hard to see our current world transportation next shattered by something like that as well.

@Amateur Feldspar

Anthropogenic climate change and the associated proposals for governments around the world to massively intervene in the economy to stop it is not comparable to the “gaps in evolution arguments.” Once again, evolutionists are not trying to predict the future of evolution. A fair comparison would be that “the climate has never changed and God created the Earth as it is.”

I feel like I’m constantly in the Chicken Little and the Sky is Falling folk tale whenever I discuss this issue.

People are contradicting each other just trying to defend the alarmism on this thread. Extrordinary claims require extrordinary evidence, and the evidence that human activity is going to devastate the world is not there. IT’S SPECULATION.

As someone pointed out, we have only existed on this Earth as a blip on the scale compared to dinosaurs, yet scientists supposedly know with undeniable certainty how crops, humans, oceans, and the rest of nature is going to react? We live by the rules of thermodynamics, as someone else pointed out, yet we are supposedly pushing climate to unprecedented levels? Which one is it?

And best of all, people are turning to politicians to save us?

What a huge joke. People can strawman me and pretend that I am denying science or compare me to biology quacks, but in reality I’m not joining into the doomsday scenarios because I see how life adapts unexpectedly to changing climates and the massive failures of government intervention on the economy. The biggest fucking that will happen will be the people by our own governments. You don’t need to be a scientist for that one to be obvious.

If doomsday does happen and great percentage of the world population is wiped out by our own climate activity, WELL THEN THAT WILL STOP THE ANTHROPOGENIC GLOBAL WARMING PROBLEM WON’T IT?

It’s all about control. It’s all about control of governments and other international bodies over the economy and people.

If Bangladesh or other regions become uninhabitable because of climate change, THE SOLUTION IS TO MOVE TO A NEW AREA. Permanent settlements are just imaginary human bias.Yet people seem to have to obsessive belief that everything must stay as it is. Vanuatu might someday be under the sea level? “OMG WHAT IS MANKIND GOING TO DO?”

@Delysid – so, where exactly will those 300 million people go? Not to mention the displacement of millions more around the globe?

Any real solutions you’d like to present?

I’m not a denier of the physical sciences. I’m not a denier that the climate is changing, as it obviously is always changing. I’m not even a denier that humans are contributing to the process with energy emissions.

I’m a skeptic of doomsday predictions about how biological life will respond to the changing climate.

I’m a believer that governments will devastate the economy in the futile attempt to prevent the inevitable, which may turn out to be not-so-bad, or possibly even beneficial in aspects, to begin with.

There have already been “unexpected” turnarounds in regard to climate change. Jungles are retaking over former cropland. Forests are beginning to thrive in higher latitudes. Nature is doing what it always does- adapting.

@Lawrence

I don’t know where people are supposed to go. It’s not my decision to make.

People need to go where things are getting done. If some areas of the world devastated by climate change, then people need to go to new areas where agriculture, life, and economics can now flourish. We live in a world of thermodynamics. It’s a balance. We don’t live in the folk tale “James Hansen and the world is incinerating.”

Progressives unfortunately are involving their own emotions into the climate change debate. Good intentions are not the same thing as good outcome.

@Delysid – see, this is the problem….I don’t understand who spending the money to relocate hundreds of millions of people (and expect that countries will have no problem absorbing those people – because there has never been a problem, right?) is going to be less than what could be put towards solutions to the problem today…..

@Lawrence

Who paid for the hundreds of millions of poor immigrants to the US over two centuries?

Let me guess, you want government to tax society to pay for it? Provressiv

Progressives always have the same primitive, antiintellectual solution to every problem: “government will solve it!” The answer is always more taxes, more regulations, more central planning, more control. From the climate to have much pop you can order in one cup.

@Delysid – hmmm…trying to compare moving millions of immigrants over two centuries to perhaps moving several hundred million people (in very poor places with very little infrastructure – not to mention volatile with many different ethnic and religious groups) in a couple of decades (at best)?

Doesn’t seem like a very good comparison to me – and for claiming that “we” meaning progressives, I guess, always think that Government has the answer – heck, at this point I’d be happy for people (including the Government) to admit that there is a problem so that we can have the discussion about the best means for tackling it…whether that is some kind of government intervention or even a private / public sector partnership to investigate alternative strategies – that would work for me.

But, burying your head in the sand and thinking that you could move people without any of the attendant problems seems a bit naive, don’t you think?

JGC – that “bottleneck” is now assumed to have occurred during the last “Super-Volcano” eruption….of which there are a few dozen that have been located around the world (Yellowstone now being the most famous).

Yes, the Toba super-volcano, which would certainly qualify as an apocalyuptic doomsday event. Part of the reason why I choose this near extinction event would be why the majority of the human population perished: rather than dying at the time of the eruption due to physical damage from the explosion itself or pyroclastic flows, they died over a period of time as the result of climate changes disrupting ecosystems, leading to crop failures, etc. (just as was seen on a smaller scale in 1816’s year without a summer following the 1815 eruption of Mt. Tambora). Global warming is no less capable of causing such ecological disruptions.

We’re resourceful, bu delysid’s idea that we can of course survive whatever’s thrown at us is naive at best.

It’s all about control. It’s all about control of governments and other international bodies over the economy and people.

No, it’s not. It’s about the established fact that global mean temperature has risen more than 1.33 degrees Celcius over teh past hundred years, with half of that rise (0.72 degrees) occuring over the last three decades. It’s about the fact that anthropogenci factors (such as the creation of greenhouse gases by human industries) is a significant contributor to that rise in GMT. It’s about the the rise in GMT is already having significant (and undesirable) effects on the world’s biosphere.

If Bangladesh or other regions become uninhabitable because of climate change, THE SOLUTION IS TO MOVE TO A NEW AREA.

And if the planet becomes inimicable to human survival because of climate change, where do you suggest we move?

I’m a believer that governments will devastate the economy in the futile attempt to prevent the inevitable, which may turn out to be not-so-bad, or possibly even beneficial in aspects, to begin with.

Why do you believe:

That the government will devastate the economy?

That there are no actions we can take to ameliorate the impact of climate change?

That disruption of the world’s existing ecosystems could prove beneficial?

And finally, why do you believe that perserving the existing global economy is a more desirable goal than preserving the world’s existing ecological health?

@JGC – I’m sure India would have no problem absorbing three hundred million more people, right (not to mention the internal dislocation of their own population due to changes in climate or rise in ocean levels)?

What it really comes down to, in the mind of people like Delysid, is “Survival of the Fittest” that it won’t matter if hundreds of millions of people die or regions of the world have their agricultural base & economy shattered by the dislocations that could occur (it also doesn’t seem to take a lot to start wars nowadays – imagine what would happen between poor nations struggling under the burden of millions of refugees and needing resources)…..as long as private corporations and citizens aren’t “inconvenienced.”

Actually, it is things types of potential situations that has driven the Insurance Industry to lead the charge to both acknowledge climate change and push for better understanding of consequences and mitigating actions that can be taken, precisely because it screws up their actuarial tables & they can no longer effectively set insurance rates……an example where private industry is reliant on the best information possible.

@ Lawrence :

I do recall reading ( or hearing?) recently that the current situation is Syria might be related to drought after the displaced moved to cities from the rural areas.
Anyone know anything out this?

@JGC

I understand that governments devestate economies because I study economics. Read economists like von Mises, Milton Friedman, Hayek, Rothbard, Sowell, Walter E Williams, and so on. Central bank monetary policy creates bubbles (booms and busts) that mislead markets and screw society. It’s no secret that the Federal Reserve caused the great depression, for instance, and it was publicly confessed by helicopter Ben. Fiat currency and steady inflation keeps the poor in eternal poverty. Fiscal redistribution of wealth is not only extremely unethical, it stops society from benefitting from supply and demands, artifically shifts control from the people to the government and the elite with political connections, and maintains the status quo.

I could go on and on. Keynesian economics and neoliberal economics poses as science when it is really just a pathetic attempt to justify socialism “scientifically.”

There are actions that can be taken.It’s in the news today IKEA is now selling personal solar devices that you can used to power homes and essentiall ge them off of the power grid.

How much energy innovation has government supressed with senseless regulation? A new nuclear power plant hasn’t been built in the US in decades. How can any person who is worried about climate change defend these regulations without exploding from this hypocrisy?

Humans, simply by existing, disruput ecosystems. Once again, this shows the insanity of ecofascists…

Ecofascists are outraged that people will be harmed and climate change will decrease the population, but then are pissed that humans exist and use the environment to better society. Which is it? It seems to me that ecofascists just want political power and don’t even bother to create a consistent, rational worldview to justify it.

Hey, if [Syria] or other regions become uninhabitable because of [Civil War], THE SOLUTION IS TO MOVE TO A NEW AREA.

Right, Delysid?

@Denise – actually, ready access to water is always a hot button issue in that area – because the rivers travel through many disputed areas (and borders).

I’m glad that Delsyid is so glib about the potential deaths of hundreds of millions of people, just so long as the “free-economy” is allowed to continue to operate….though one wonders, if things do get back enough, how long their will be a “free-economy” to operate?

I could go on and on. Keynesian economics and neoliberal economics poses as science when it is really just a pathetic attempt to justify socialism “scientifically.”

Is it your position that any economy that doesn’t take the form of a totally unregulated free market system constitutes a ‘devastated ‘ economy, delysid? Or do you agree that regulation in some form is necessary?

There are actions that can be taken.It’s in the news today IKEA is now selling personal solar devices that you can used to power homes and essentiall ge them off of the power grid.

What number of homes globally will need to convert to IKEA’s personal solar devices to cause any significant reduction in the rate of GMT increase? I’m sure you have this number at your fingertips. since you’re suggesting this represents a viable and rational solution to the problem, preferable to the enacting of economic incentives to reduce the anthropogenic contributors to climate change..

How much energy innovation has government supressed with senseless regulation?

I give up—how much?

A new nuclear power plant hasn’t been built in the US in decades. How can any person who is worried about climate change defend these regulations without exploding from this hypocrisy?

Nuclear power has the largest carbon footprint of any energy technology other than fossil fuels, both during construction (heavy machine plus tons of concrete and steel fabrication) and after during operation (large scale mining, transportation, converting Uranium to yellowcake, then to UF6, then enrichment, creation of fuel pellets, fuel rod assemblies, etc.)

Humans, simply by existing, disruput ecosystems. Once again, this shows the insanity of ecofascists…

Agreed, which is why we need to be aware of how our activities are disrupting ecosystems and take appropriate steps to minimize that disruption—for example, by reducing anthropogenic contributions to climate change.
Don’t you agree?

JGC – Actually, I can’t see any way to get human CO2 levels down to a pre-industrial level (which I understand is what it would take to reverse climate change) without reducing the human population by at least 50% and eliminating any systems that rely on fossil fuels, including petroleum, coal, and natural gas. If there’s a better plan that would work …

@ Lawrence:

Right.
Whilst I cannot go into my own economics because I have to get ready in leave in an hour or so, let’s just say, it’s not
Austrian, as you can probably guess.

Anyone else note: sid / Delysid? Meaningful? Coincidence?

@JGC

You are exactly the type of environmental hypocrite that has spawned such passionate opposition. Wind and solar power require energy to construct, too, don’t they? Don’t they take energy go maintain? But hell, we must all obey your arbitrary worldview, right? The perfect carbon footprint is whatever you say it is?

See, here is the problem – people like Delysid don’t want to admit there is a problem, because it would require large-scale interventions by both private corporations and governments, working in tandem to alleviate some of the major issues we may have to confront….no one is saying, today, that we have to junk our cars or replace our petroleum-based economy – but that it would be a good idea to start looking at alternatives, because the fix today is going to be a hell of a lot less expensive than the fix tomorrow (when you’re trying to find homes for a few hundred million people).

Throwing up your hands and stating that the “Free-economy” will ultimately fix the problem is denying the fact that these economic forces only work when the world economy (and individual economies) are stable – we can expect that should there be sufficient changes to the climate which create more chaotic conditions (and dislocations of economic power), it will become nigh-impossible to do anything about it….don’t you agree?

@JCB

You are responding to me from a computer, wasting energy and destroying the planet. You are typing probably from some building that was built using energy.

It is well known that modern buildings make a far larger carbon footprint than a grass hut. Computers produce more emissions than smoke signals.

Let’s all go back to grass huts and smoke signals in order to minimize our carbon footprints? Are people who are more extreme than you wrong? Is your arbitrary worldview of control and regulation just right?

@Lawrence

LMAO “No one today is saying that we have to junk our cars are replace our petroleum-based economy?”

Oh really? Maybe I hallucinated cas-for clunkers. Maybe I’m hallucinating Eco-checks every year for my car. Maybe I’m hallucinating coporate subsidies for solar power or strict limitations on off-shore drilling.

@Delysid – hmmmm…who is being unreasonable now?

I guess you are in favor of leaded gasoline, unlimited powers of corporations and getting rid of all current regulations too, right? I mean, the market will determine the winners and losers, right? Who cares if some people get hurt along the way, since that is the price of progress?

“You are exactly the type of environmental hypocrite that has spawned such passionate opposition. Wind and solar power require energy to construct, too, don’t they? Don’t they take energy go maintain?”

Yes, but their carbon footprint both during construction and during operation are far, far less than that of fossil fuels or nuclear power.

But hell, we must all obey your arbitrary worldview, right?

I’m not offering a worldview of any sort, delysid. You suggested that the construction of nuclear power plants could have mitigated anthropogenic contributions to climate change sufficiently that regulatory intervention would not also be necessary and I’m pointing out why that simply isn’t true.

The perfect carbon footprint is whatever you say it is?

Well, a ‘perfect carbon footprint would be a negative value, such that you were releasing less carbon than you sequestered and your day to day activities were not contributing to rising GMT.

But that’s not me saying so–that’s pretty much by definition.

@Lawrence

If there is a problem, the worst way to solve it is force by government. The more force it takes, the worse of a solution it becomes.

Letting the market figure out solutions is the best way because it’s the ideas of 100’s of millions of individuals competing instead of the central planning by a few elites.

Often, in a free society, many problems fix themselves. In most of the developed countries the population has a negative birthrate, for instance. People are voluntarily adopting solar power and other “green” technology. It doesn’t have to be forced.

If there is a problem, the worst way to solve it is force by government.

By what rational argument is this true, in 1) all cases in general and 2) with respect to climate change?

The more force it takes, the worse of a solution it becomes.

Why are you conflating “government intervention” with “force”?

Letting the market figure out solutions is the best way because it’s the ideas of 100′s of millions of individuals competing instead of the central planning by a few elites.

Excpet that those hundreds of millions of individuals aren’t competing to produce the best solution, or the soltuon that best serves all members of society, but instead competing to produce the solution that generates the greatest economic return on investment for themselves and/or their shareholders.

Do you see the problem there?

You end up with a solution such as “If there are floods the entire 300 million population of Bengladesh can just move somewhere else” being actually considered to be a ‘good’ solution.

Often, in a free society, many problems fix themselves. In most of the developed countries the population has a negative birthrate, for instance. People are voluntarily adopting solar power and other “green” technology. It doesn’t have to be forced.

@JBC

How about Bangladesh solves their own problems, eh?

Government is force. Government intervention is force.

The beauty of the market, despite the rambling emotional gibberish of progressives regarding “profits for shareholders blah blah blah,” the people are in control by deciding what goods to purchase. They don’t have to buy the products sold by a corporation.

@Delsyid – what I would say is that the money being funneled to those that constantly “deny” climate change is occurring & preventing any meaningful actions from being taken (either by government or the private sector) is distorting the very process that you believe will fix the problem (or at least alleviate it).

Admitting there is a problem is certainly not an invitation for massive government intervention – I’m certainly not advocating that position & I don’t believe anyone here has said as such either (hence the strawman in your argument), but that the continued denial that a problem exists is what is preventing the very discussion that should occur – as in, yes, we see there is a problem here, so let’s talk about the best means for tackling it…..

So, do you believe there is a problem related to climate change & that some effort should be made (either by the government or relevant private sector entities) to deal with the repercussions?

If there is a problem, the worst way to solve it is force by government.

Can you think of a better way to solve the problem of vaccine-preventable diseases than government-run vaccination programs?

@Delsyid – except that Corporations don’t work in the best interest of anything but themselves and will take measures and means to distort the system to their benefit (hence the drive to “monopolize” areas of industry).

Libertarianism is as bad as communism when it comes to practice – because, in theory, they both sound fantastic….in practice, however, they deny human nature and don’t really work very well for the very reason that they are practiced by people with widely varying motivations…..(power being probably the biggest distorting factor).

In a perfect world, perhaps either or both could work beautifully, but in today’s world, both fail miserably when applied to the multitude of problems and human factors involved.

@AdamG

A lot of the antivaccine outrage comes from government forcing vaccines. I wish government would get out of medicine completely.

My dental school forces us to get a yearly influenza vaccine, and even though I would volunarily get this anyway, this policy really pisses me off.

The solution is education. There will always be the Ginger Taylors of the world who insist on ignorance, but we must do out best to educate others and win the battle of ideas. Lead by example, not by force.

I just don’t know what to say about someone who thinks government shouldn’t regulate anything but is in favour of nuclear power. Nuclear power doesn’t work spectacularly well with regulation, and reverting back to Industrial Revolution social norms isn’t going to make that any better. Of course, I reckon he’s not old enough to know about the killer smogs in London, England, that somehow magically went away when the government passed the Clean Air Act there, or that for most of the history of humankind, water in cities hasn’t been fit to drink and yet now somehow it is…I wonder why?

The thing is, government is a voluntary association of people. If you don’t like the government you have, you can dissolve it, elect a new one, or even overthrow it. Taking government out of the equation at this point means the corporations take over, and you can’t unelect Microsoft, or get rid of BP’s environmental destruction by storming their corporate HQ and sending their upper management to the nearest guillotine (much though, if you watched what happened to the Gulf Coast and how hard BP’s fighting to avoid paying for the externalities caused by its pollution, you might want to…).

Also, if you want to eat pre-pure food laws food (and I’d direct you to Fast Food Nation if you want to see how bad things are with regulation), be my guest, but a) don’t include me, and b) don’t use any of my provincial healthcare when you get sick, either.

@Interrobang – I’d recommend reading “Jennifer Government” as a great example of what life might be like without regulations & driven by the “free-market.”

@Delysid:
Libertarians often say the best regulation is the “invisible hand of the marketplace”. If you study a little history, you see that the “invisible hand” is all too often an invisible thumb on the scale, one made up of money, power, and influence.
Libertarians also tend to oppose antidiscrimination laws, saying their businesses are their own property to run as they see fit. So under such a rule, if a business owner decides not to allow, say, Catholics into his store, and they insist on coming in, he can call the police. So there you get a substitution of the use of government power to enforce discrimination. Is that what you really want? Of course, with the laws slanted toward property over people, he might get away with just gunning them down if they get really angry at him. Sound like a fair solution to you?

Delysid: The solution is education.

I think you’re forgetting that Ginger Taylor, and just about everyone, in the Age of Autism/ Canary Party mess is educated, and most, if not all, have college degrees. In short, education alone isn’t the magic bullet, and pretending it is does no one any favors. In this case, there’s a huge yawning gulf between being educated and having knowledge- or being willing to acquire knowledge.

@Interrblog

I am extremely impressed at how many blatant fallacies you squeezed into one post. Thanks for dropping in from ImaginationLand.

“The governmet is voluntary.”

This is an insane claim. Taxes are not voluntary. Regulations are not voluntary. This should be self-explanatory.

Your logic behind corporations is head-slappingly ridiculous.

Progressive logic: Corporations might screw us, therefore let’s make a powerful government that is far more unnaccountable, has prisons, to control them!

What brilliant logic!

Also, the FDA was not started because pre-FDA food was poison, but because Upton Sinclair, a muckraking communist, wrote the Jungle to draw attention to labor unions.

All you are doing is conjectural, manipulative, progressive fear-mongering.

WITHOUT GOVERNMENT CORPROATIONS WILL ENSLAVE US, OUR FOOD WILL BE POISON, AND THE EARTH WILL INCINCERATE TO DUE MARKET GLOBAL WARMING

@Old Rockin Dave

I fully support ending discrimination laws. You caught me. I believe in freedom of association. If a place business wants to kick me out because I am an atheist, I fully support their right to do so. It’s pretty stupid for them because they are losing out on my business.

I know this concept might be overwhelming difficult for people like you to understand, but please try.

@ Lawrence #210

Libertarianism works everywhere, everyday. Libertarianism is the belief in voluntary associations and ownership of yourself. Every time you purchase anything or even interact with someone that is libertarianism in action.

Communism can exist in a libertarian society (or under a libertarian government.) No one is stopping people from forming their own communes and not using money.

Libertarianism is not allowed to exist in a communist system (or socialist or whatever fasicst system the United States has turned into). Every one must obey. A libertarian community on which no pays income taxes or people disregard the other hundreds of thousands of government laws is not allowed to exist. The police come and raid it.

Libertarianism boils down to the following philosophy:

“I don’t wanna and you can’t make me”.

Oops… Delysid states “I fully support ending discrimination laws”

Would that be Jim Crow Discrimination Laws or anti-discrimination laws, Delysid?

@lillady

Believe it or not I’m not Ron Paul’s clone. He has progressives foaming at the mouth to smear him as a racist so he is more careful about how he words things.

JIm Crowe Laws were GOVERNMENT ENFORCED RACISM. So yes, I fully support ending those laws as well as parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that went too far in the opposite direction.

The progressive secret weapon is to smear libertarians as racists, which is why every conversation includes this accusations, without exception.

I’m suprised no one has said “BUT WHO WILL BUILD THE ROADS?” lol

Heck, government built a lot of roads around here, but then the sold them to the corporations to run, so now I pay tolls to get where I need to go….making my trips more expensive.

@dangerousbacon

Progressivism: “The government is the solution to every problem, taxing and forcing to obey my will makes mem a humanitarian, and anyone who disagrees with me is a racist.”

@lilady

Ron Paul didn’t write those things. Please try to be less dishonest.

Should Orac get blamed for my comments on Respectful Insolence? He’s the moderator, right? Give me a break and please try not to argue like Ginger Taylor.

Poor Delysid…too ignorant to understand the differences between forms of government:

“Libertarianism is not allowed to exist in a communist system (or socialist or whatever fasicst system the United States has turned into). Every one must obey. A libertarian community on which no pays income taxes or people disregard the other hundreds of thousands of government laws is not allowed to exist. The police come and raid it.”

(Translation)

“I made my money and I don’t want to pay for public roads, fire and police protection, public schools, public libraries, grants and loans for college tuition in State universities and our infrastructure.

“Bring back George W. who tried to push through legislation to permit Americans to raid their Social Security accounts to invest in the financial markets. (Legislation for the little guys, which would not have benefited his pals on Wall Street//sarcasm…while the W’s fiscal policies drove the economy off the rails)”

“Elect Ron Paul, whose Presidency would have eliminated Income Taxes, Medicare and Medicaid and the Federal Reserve…because religious groups would provide for the indigent//snort.”

“Yeah, I’ve got mine and f*ck you all”

@lilady

You should not be mocking anyone about their undertanding of government. I said it before and I will repeat it- your policital arguments are exactly like Ginger Taylor.

You just proposed a moronic strawman about libertarians (but congraduations by being first one to bring up roads) Do you think libertarians don’t want fire protection, roads, police, libraries, or schools? Libetarians just diagree on the best way to go about those things.

Did you know most fire fighters are volunteer anyway? Did you know that in the time of Ben Franklin private fire departments would race to a fire to be the first ones to put it out?

My town does not have a police department, yet there is no chaos and it’s a peaceful community.

“Bring back George W Bush”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA You know less about libertarianism than Ginger Taylor knows about vaccines. Please head your head in shame because you have no idea what the hell you are talking about.

I’m not even responding to the rest of it because it’s not even worth it.

In NYC gangs that constituted the fire departments of the time used to fight for the privilege of extorting money from the owners who’s property was on fire.

If they weren’t paid, they would watch the property burn to the ground.

Just as when you argue with alternative medicine practictionors about science you find out how little about science they really know, when you argue with progressives about politics you find out just how little they know about economics, history, and politics and how deep into emotional lalaland they really are.

Progressive politics and alternative medicine are fraternal twins. Opinion and not evidence, emotion and not logic, and of course plenty of fear-mongering.

“Ron Paul didn’t write those things. Please try to be less dishonest.”

All of those remarks appeared in Ron Paul’s Libertarian Newsletter. Perhaps you could point me to subsequent issues of Ron Paul’s Libertarian Newsletter, where he issued apologies for not reviewing those quotations wrongfully attributed to him, in those Newsletters?

“Should Orac get blamed for my comments on Respectful Insolence? He’s the moderator, right? Give me a break and please try not to argue like Ginger Taylor.”

Orac used your cogent arguments against Ginger Taylor’s unscientific anti-vaccine stance. You decided to come here and start a flame war to advance your Libertarian unscientific agenda. Orac does not moderate Respectful Insolence with a heavy hand; he allows comments through posted by Bob Schecter a.k.a. Sid Offit…another science-illiterate and self-centered Libertarian.

@Lawrence

But I thought libertarians just wanted buildings to burn? Our you saying that before public fire deparments there was actually people fighting to put fires out?

Weird!

And do you have proof that firefighters would just watch the place burn to the ground? Or is that just fear-mongering?

On the flip-side, government, if you don’t pay them, just takes your posessions and throws you in prison. They love doing things like throwing bleach on food that wasn’t FDA approved and shooting puppies.

That’s why government is so superior to libertarianism, right?

@lilady

I’m science-illiterate, hu? My soon-to-be DDS, MS in the biomedical sciences and BA in biology and chemistry must have been a fluke. I guess I don’t deserve my white coat.

I didn’t come here to start a flame war. In fact I’ve avoided commenting here because of the flagrant pretentious ignorance I see being spouted.

So you are saying Orac doesn’t moderate with a heavy-hand, just like Ron Paul didn’t moderate his newsletter? But that is different somehow, right? Who has time for rational arguments these days, imma right?

@Lawrence

I read the article and I noticed that the $75 fee is a local government policy. Regardless, that is still unethical. A free society depends on an ethical people.

I hope Delsyid can recognize that his “skepticism” about the scientific evidence for AGW is based on the argument from consequences. He may fear taxes, regulations and all other forms of government intervention, but the proposed political/economic solutions to AGW have no bearing on the validity of the science.

Climate science draws on the same scientific principles and methods as all science. The motivation and the rewards for climate scientists are the same as for any scientist. It’s preposterous to attribute the overwhelming, worldwide scientific consensus for AGW to conspiracy, collusion and greed. If Delsyid can’t trust climate science, then he can’t trust any science. Can he really not see that?

“Did you know most fire fighters are volunteer anyway? Did you know that in the time of Ben Franklin private fire departments would race to a fire to be the first ones to put it out?

My town does not have a police department, yet there is no chaos and it’s a peaceful community.”

Are you a homeowner who pays property taxes? Have you checked your property tax bill? My property tax bill has an assessment for fire protection/rescue services for the all-volunteer fire department for purchase of firetrucks, ambulances and supplies used by volunteer firemen/EMTs to transport me to the nearest hospital. My nearest hospital is the County hospital that I support with my property tax and State Income Tax Dollars.

My local property taxes and my State and Federal Income Taxes all fund the County health department and the seven satellite public health clinic where Medicaid recipients and those without medical insurance receive care.

My school taxes are twice as high as my Town and County taxes…even though I haven’t had a child in school for more than twenty years.

If I wanted to stay in my County, all the taxes I pay to the Town and to the County, would be paying for the roads I drive on. But, how would I travel outside of my County, on Interstate highways, if not for the Federal Income Tax that I pay…and that you and the Libertarians want to do away with?

You claim to be pro-science and pro-vaccine…yet how do you think the Federal government funds the VFC program, for kids who are Medicaid recipients and for kids whose parents are uninsured or under-insured?

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/programs/vfc/index.html

Delysid: A free society depends on an ethical people.

How many of those have you ever met? On the whole, people are nasty, small-minded, panicky and stupid. I’ve met a few persons who were ethical, but in a crowd, individuality and ethics vanish.

@Politicalguineapig

People are bad so we need a government of people are bad so we need a governmetn of people are bad so we need a government…

@delysid – good luck arguing against the past few thousand years of human history…..your philosophy is great in theory, but you’ll never actually see it put into practice, thus your argument is fairly inane anyway.

“I’m science-illiterate, hu? My soon-to-be DDS, MS in the biomedical sciences and BA in biology and chemistry must have been a fluke. I guess I don’t deserve my white coat.”

Ha, you’ve never paid Federal Income Taxes and I doubt that you’ve ever paid property taxes. Did you attend private universities or State universities? If you went to a State university, the taxpayers in that State, paid for the majority of your tuition.

Who funded all your education? Did your wealthy parents fund that education or did you take out student loans, which my Federal Income taxes partially funded?

@ Mal Adapted: Have you ever known me to post comments about Global Warming? I’m too smart to ever post comments about that subject, which I know little or nothing about.

Too bad, other posters here are too dumb to realize the limitations of their “expertise”.

Delysid,
I think you are hopelessly naive.

A free society depends on an ethical people.

I wish you luck with that. Sadly, without government the least ethical people with the most guns take control, and you no longer have a free society. You just have to look around the planet currently and historically to see that is true.

If you want to take all the unethical and violent people, build a huge electric fence around Texas (for example), and put them all in there where they can do little harm, and won’t bother the rest of us, I’m right with you, but I can’t see that happening soon.

In the meantime a democratically elected government seems to me to be the least evil of the choices we have.

@lilady

I went to a mix of private and state schools. My tuition is skyrocketed compared to what my middle class parents paid for college because of government intervention in college loans over the last few decades. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible. I also used the roads to drive to school. What is your point?

@Krebiozen

Sadly, the GOVERNMENT right now has the most guns and is full of people without ethics. Saying “without government blah blah blah” is pure conjecture, and that conjucture is undeniable reality of what is already happening with the government. Sheesh!

***It is extremely difficult to go to college, grad school, and dental school on only private loans, and impossible to work through it. I have been forced to participate in the system.

In order to practice dentistry I have to pay for a DEA license, licenses which fund the entirety of the DEA, the organization which I despise more than anything. My choosing to practice dentistry in no way justifies this agency.

Delysid: You still are avoiding answering the questions I posed to you. There you stand, an about-to-be newly-minted health care worker who has benefited by public tax dollars for parts of your education, paid for by people who are childless or whose children who are grown and no longer in education programs.

What is the amount you have paid into the system in the form of property taxes, State and Federal Income Taxes for the coddled lifestyle you lead?

Cripes, I despise wise-ass twenty somethings who are totally clueless, who come from privileged backgrounds and who blather about AGW, our government and the ACA.

@ Mal Adapted

Just because my argument is partially the argument from consequence does not make it necessarily wrong. There is also the fallacy fallac in which a fallacy isn’t necessarily wrong.

How do you know that no major negative feedback systems exist? Negative feedback is ubiquitous in nature. Positive feedback is relatively rare. Yet this is the “consensus” doomsday assumption.

No matter what happens confirmation bias seems to lead to more and more factors being blamed for global warming. Extreme weather has been debunked yet that arises everytime there is a hurricane.

Well, I believe that markets, science and government all have dogs in this fight, be it putting the brakes on climate change or providing essential services. But that’s because I have my head firmly upon my shoulders.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

We now return to your regularly-scheduled political argument, already in progress….

@ Delysid:

“No matter what happens confirmation bias seems to lead to more and more factors being blamed for global warming. Extreme weather has been debunked yet that arises everytime there is a hurricane.”

It’s the ignorant AGW deniers/libertarians who you hang with, who use hurricanes and blizzards in their arguments to deny AGW. They, like you, do not know the difference between “weather” and “climate”.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_weather.html

Get a life and get a clue Delysid.

Benefitted from public tax dollars? Priviledged background?

LMFAO. My education has been a waste in many ways. DDS is an obstacle to the profession more than anything else. I despise middle-aged limosuine liberals who think their age justifies their political ignorance. I’m screwed by government far more than I benefit from it.

If you support the ACA then you understand jack-shit about economics. You are not even qualified to be voting.

Do you realize that the prices of healthcare have skyrocketed because government handed health care to insurance corproations? Have you heard of the HMO Act of 1973? This is not the free-market. Governmetn is driving up the costs with endless reglations and laws. HIPAA, COBRA, the HMO Act of 1973, Medicare Part A-D, Medicaid, the ACA, the FDA, the EPA. Every one of these agencies drives up costs and efficiency.

I might be a 20-something, but you are floating around in LaLaland. Just because you are middle-aged doesn’t mean you know jackshit about economics.

Oh yeah, and I pay taxes. I’ve worked for 10 years, from teaching tennis, to tutoring organic chemistry, to pulling up dirty carpets and toilets. Rigth now I’m a dental school which is a freaking disaster.

Every limosuine liberal should be forced to practice dentistry in a dental school so they can truly see a bureaucratic nightmare in action.

By the way, it’s the climate change alarmists who bemoan global warming everytime there is a hurricane. Progressives use every natural disasters to ramp up the debate. “Never let a crisis go to waste.”

Anthropogenic climate change and the associated proposals for governments around the world to massively intervene in the economy to stop it is not comparable to the “gaps in evolution arguments.” Once again, evolutionists are not trying to predict the future of evolution. A fair comparison would be that “the climate has never changed and God created the Earth as it is.”

I could make a lot of objections to your supposed refutation of my analogy (do you think all fields of science which make predictions about the near future are invalidated by the fact that evolution scientists don’t try to predict what course evolution will take in the millenial timeframes it generally operates in? Or is it only those fields where you perceive an economic ramification?)

But I think the more telling thing is, you didn’t respond at all to the other point I made, about the anti-vaccine crusaders who try to claim that the proposition “vaccination saves lives” is somehow in doubt because they can point to some things which are not known, such as exactly who would catch the disease and die from it if not for the vaccine. Your argument is in the exact same form: “Because your science can’t answer every possible question in exacting detail, it must be that every aspect of your prediction is in doubt. Iin such doubt, in fact, that my opinion as someone who isn’t even in the field is just as good as the scientific consensus among those who have studied this field their entire lives.”

We may not know who would die from measles if we stopped vaccinating and just let it run wild again, but there is no doubt that approach would lead to deaths. There is no reasonable doubt that an unrestrained approach to releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere has already led to climate change and will continue to do so if unchecked; the fact that questions remain such as “exactly how bad will it be?” and “have we already reached the point of no return?” does not put all the rest in doubt.

I feel like I’m constantly in the Chicken Little and the Sky is Falling folk tale whenever I discuss this issue.

To be honest no one gives a crap what you “feel”. People “feel” all sorts of things and mistakenly present them to us as if it has some power to convince us that they’re right. Advocates of so-called “biomed” approaches to “curing” autism constantly whine about how they “feel” the scientific establishment ignores the “cures” they’ve accomplished because those “cures” would somehow prove things the establishment doesn’t want to hear about vaccines being responsible. But their “feelings” on the matter mean absolutely jack and Shin-ola about what the truth is.

People are contradicting each other just trying to defend the alarmism on this thread. Extrordinary claims require extrordinary evidence, and the evidence that human activity is going to devastate the world is not there. IT’S SPECULATION.

STOP SHOUTING, THANKS. And frankly, you are wrong. Neither the proposition that we can royally f*ck up our life as we know it if we alter our climate, nor the proposition that industries all over the globe casually pumping gasses into the atmosphere that alter how much of the heat that reaches our planet is retained can alter the climate is all that extraordinary. Given what we know, the truly extraordinary claim would be that we can do just what we like, including pumping out greenhouse gases full-tilt if that’s what the Great God Free Market tells us is good, and nothing bad could possibly result from it.

As someone pointed out, we have only existed on this Earth as a blip on the scale compared to dinosaurs, yet scientists supposedly know with undeniable certainty how crops, humans, oceans, and the rest of nature is going to react?

That’s not even a sequitur. “Dinosaurs were around much longer than we were, therefore it’s perfectly reasonable to think that there’s some mysterious buffer force which will perfectly compensate for everything we’re pumping into the atmosphere so that we’ll never suffer any consequences we don’t like from it”?

We live by the rules of thermodynamics, as someone else pointed out, yet we are supposedly pushing climate to unprecedented levels? Which one is it?

The fact that you actually ask that, as if those two statements somehow didn’t go together, shows just how very much you do not understand the science.

So glad to hear back from you lilady,

You see, I have the ability to help lead people to the pharmacy to get vaccinated. I try my best to overcome all of their obections. I feel good about helping people get protection from things that could help make their lives healthier. I’ve heard every kind of objection you can imagine
My passion is to be a great listener, bite my lip, and give them every reason in the world to trust me.
When I got my flu shot, I made it clear to all the customers that saw me. You can not sell what you do not believe in.
If I was 50 I would tell them I had the shot. But the CDC has not approved it for under 50. I have had customers in the hospital for 5-6 days that had it and were all several years younger than me.

Sorry for spelling errors,- objections punctuation and the rest.
Working seven days in a row this week.

@ Anteus Feldspar

There is no “God Free-Market.” Good try. That’s the entire point.

I didn’t respond to your other points because there are 10 or so people responding to me.

I understand science quite well, thank you. My question was rhetorical. Apparently you have not noticed how those defending climate change alarmism are all contradicting each other. It’s also not a coincidence that global warming alarmism is intimitely tied to those promoting socialism/progressivsm.

“… it should not be surprising to see hordes of former Reds, or of those who otherwise would have become Reds, turning from Marxism and becoming the Greens of the ecology movement. It is the same fundamental philosophy in a different guise, ready as ever to wage war on the freedom and well-being of the individual.” George Reisman

@Delysid:
First, taking on your snide “people like you” comment, you don’t know what kinds of person I am, and to pretend that you know the first thing about me from a handful of posts here is pretentious and obnoxious. I hope you don’t make such remarks to your patients when you’re in dental practice – or on further thought, maybe I do.
Getting back to substance, “If a place business wants to kick me out because I am an atheist, I fully support their right to do so. It’s pretty stupid for them because they are losing out on my business.” How many white people in this country regularly refused the business variously of Jews, Catholics, Latinos, African-Americans, American Indians, etc.? Did any one of them ever moan that about lost business? And what happens if that business is the only pharmacy in town and the next one is fifty miles away and will close before you can get there? What happens if the local undertaker won’t bury your relative? What do you do if you pull into the first open hotel you’ve seen for miles and they chase you away? How about the gas station that won’t sell you any gas, leaving you stranded? What if it isn’t just one business, but every single one in town? Do you want to be the only person on the tour bus who has to sleep in the bus or the pool shed, or have someone with you bring your meals out to the car? The evil of discrimination in public accommodations is far greater than a little or even a lot of annoyance to the business owner or operator. Think those days will never come back? Try traveling around this country as a Sikh or a Muslim or a Chassidic Jew.

Orac I haven’t gotten to your Obamacare article yet.

You need to take 10 steps way back and figure out why we even have health insurance in the first place.

Insurance is supposed to be for risk management. We don’t homeowner’s insurance reshingle the roof or car insurance to pay for regular oil changes, so why would we use health insurance to pay for routine care? The system makes no sense.

It all goes back to the HMO Act of 1973.

Employer-based health insurance failed miserably in the market, and prior to 1973 there were only 40 or businesses in the entire country that had such a plan. This is because it is an inefficient and frankly irresponsible idea. Cue in Ted Kennedy and Richard Nixon and suddenly we have, instead of a system of health care, a bizarre system of HMOs, PPOs and everything else.

It used to be a doctor-patient relationship. We now have an insuranc-doctor-insurance-patient-insurance relationship.

Why would anybody be confused as to why prices are skyrocketing and health care access is a problem? Because insurance corporations now control health care.

Funny, then, isn’t it, how health care costs are equal or better quality at much lower cost in countries with universal health coverage, be it a patchwork of private and public (like Germany), an Obamacare-like system (Switzerland), or single payer (like Canada or the UK).

How are you measuring quality? Please do not cite WHO surverys because I don’t want a concussion from slapping my head.

@Delysid,

I’m in canucksland (Quebec to be exact) and my healthcare is that way:

1-: annual visit to the primary care provider for my synthroid. I schedule the appointment 2 month in advance.

2-: a visit each 5 weeks to my shrink. He give me my appointment each time and I show up 30 minutes in advance.

3-: last was the surgeon for the appendix removal. Appointment was over the phone with the appointment center. Wait time (after surgery) was 6 week.

As for myself, I’m 6’1″ 164lbs and I walk 7.2 km (4.5 miles) each day and looking to do more. I also do some stretching.

Alain

@Alain

Your anecdote does not mean you have better quality health care system. This is the problem with the WHO surveys.

People in general tend to praise their socialized medical system because they have money taken away from them upfront in taxes and then are given an unknown portion of that money back in care without you doing a money transfer. It feels like you are getting it for free. This is a very deceitful trick politiicans pull.

I think it’s quite apparent now that Delysid found his way to the correct side of the vaccination question purely by accident, as on any other subject he cannot think his way out of a paper bag.

Anyone, on any side of any issue, can spew out argument-shaped objects in the form “Oh, no wonder you cling to that idea that I can’t actually refute meaningfully, it’s because you’re a closet Red/have a messianic ‘save the world’ complex/can only find comfort in slavish adherence to the status quo” – et cetera, et cetera, ad hominem, ad hominem.

But if you claim to understand the science, and then demonstrate that your understanding of science is so poor that you think thermodynamics somehow makes it not possible for climate to change – you just sank your own chances of being taken seriously.

I did NOT say thermodynamics makes climate change impossible.

Your reading comprehension is terrible.

I’m saying that the doomsday predictions seem to counter-act the concept of thermodynamics.

But of course in progressive lalaland global warming alarmism is the only true science, right? Everyone who is a skeptic about the consequences of climate change doens’t know anything about science, right?

Every single one of you has demonstrated that climatology is the worst of policized science.

“[m]y objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but it’s rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have.” Freeman Dyson

@Delysid,

You know, we measure a population well-being as how we treat the lowest ranking members of that population and I must say, as one of the lowest ranking member of my population that the government of Quebec with its many social program (yes, we may well be the most socialist of canucksland), I have benefited greatly from our socialist^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H sometime leftish, sometime not, government but this is all anectdata and opinion.

Instead, I’ll propose you a deal. I have a disability, a medical one and a social one which is the same: autism. my ex-flatmate told me one time that I should be left to die on the street (for reference, he is a true psychopath). This is an extreme view which 99% of the population will not agree but however, it’s hard for me to be self-sustaining. Given the government of your choice, what would you propose for me? How do I get access to a well paying job using the financial ressources (sp?) that you prefer? How do I get out of my mess?

Alain

p.s. you might want to know what are my strength but suffice it to say that I’ve corrected all error in a spreadsheet which was 25 columns by 2500 lines and the resulting work is here. I’m also excellent with computers.

“LMFAO. My education has been a waste in many ways. DDS is an obstacle to the profession more than anything else. I despise middle-aged limosuine liberals who think their age justifies their political ignorance.

I agree. Your education has been a waste in every way. It’s been a few years since we allowed barbers to practice dentistry.

“I’m screwed by government far more than I benefit from it.”

Sure, sure, *Big Government* has screwed you. How much income tax did you pay last year…or during any year?

“… it should not be surprising to see hordes of former Reds, or of those who otherwise would have become Reds, turning from Marxism and becoming the Greens of the ecology movement. It is the same fundamental philosophy in a different guise, ready as ever to wage war on the freedom and well-being of the individual.” George Reisman”

Well, I’m not too surprised that you follow the editor of Ron Paul’s Libertarian Newsletters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LewRockwell.com

@Alain

The whole system is screwed up, in Canada and the US (but for different reasons). I can’t take the bait and give you a simple answer in your ‘what if’ scenario.

The government of my choice is no-government, or if I had to choose, I Nightwatchman State that is involved only with a rudimentary justice system and emergency military.

I propose a medical system that is free from governmetn manipulation in which the laws of supply and demand continuously bring about greater and greater innovation at cheaper prices through competition as we have in the technology field.

You are probably using an affordable computer so advanced that not even the richest person in the world had it 20 years ago. In 20 years (just saying a number) you will have the computer that on the richest in society can afford now. That is how the market works when left relatively free from the enormous government parasite regulating it to death.

Socialism brings everyone down to lower common denominators. Instead of a system in which the richest get the lates and greatest technology and treatment and the poor get slightly older, but cheaper, treatment, sociaism holds things to more of a standstill.

The United States system, despite it’s faults, still produces an overwhelming amount of medical innovation relative to the rest of the world. The rest of the world with their various versions of socialized medicine still benefit from the innovations by the US while using socialism. I can only imagine what will happen if the US further declines into socialism.

In the United States it is not uncommon to see homeless people with cell phones more advanced than the one I had 10 years ago. People living in trailor parks can afford plasma televisions.

But healthcare is still unaffordable. It’s not a freaking mystery about what the problem is. Government.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. I’m not baiting you, that was a sincere question and it’s not about what can I afford now but more, where do I get the money to pay for my education. Mind trying again?

Alain

@Alain

Here is where the system is screwed up. The tuition at Yale was about $50 a semester for 40 years. Then the government started getting involved. Now the tuition at Yale doubles every few years and is up to $40,000. Government intervention in student loans and the medical system is causing medical school to increase up to 20% some years.

College used to be so affordable that someone could work part-time and pay their own tuition without student loans. Those days are gone because the government has been screwing it up so long.

I encourage you to listen to Peter Schiff break it down quite sufficiently.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTNFfzUsptI

@ Delysid,

The government solution here was to put a cap on tuition cost and at the moment, Quebec’s cost are the lowest in Canada. See http://www.securivm.ca/2013/04/only-in-quebec.html

Since then, I started to do some research and found a few states which had very low fees (comparable to the rate found in most provinces) for native from the states but I haven’t updated my blog post to reflect this.

Alain

@lilady

Like a typical progressive, you have one argument- the racist card. That is all you have. How many different times have you tried to bring up racism? That is 3 now. You are even worse than Ginger Taylor.

You have nothing else. As this conversation continues you will likely just keep trying to call me or other libertarians as racist from different angles.

I said it twice and I will say it again because you just providing me with more evidence.

Progressives are the fraternal twins of quacks.

Go ahead, try and call me, Ron Paul, or libertarians racist again. I know you want to. That’s all you have. It’s the peak of progressive intellectualism.

The blog post apply to any program except the MBA’s from McGill and Concordia university.

Alain

@ Post 277
What did you have to say twice?
Tell it to us again, as if we are two year olds

@Drugstoreemployee

When I get called racist over and over again it feels like I’m talking to 2 year olds. Sorry for repeating myself but it is frustrating.

Delysid: The reason we have governments and rules is precisely because people can’t be trusted. They need structure. The neighborhood watch (lynch) committee is not a stable form of government, and cannot and should not be trusted. Rules endure longer than people do, and are less susceptible to bending.

As for vaccines- why would you rail against something you’re going to get anyway? My mother works in healthcare, and if anything, is grateful for that rule, as it doesn’t cost her anything but a little bit of time.

Finally, you do know that those regs and rules about dentists that you dislike are the main things keeping dentists in business. If they were all unregulated, most of them would be like Adams and the natural news crew- quacks. People wouldn’t bother with dental care. Something to think about, if you are capable of that.

#180 Delysid… I know this doesn’t touch on your arguments, but when you start using all-caps it doesn’t make your arguments look more sensible. It makes them look crazy, even when they are not.

#186 Again, not everyone here is “progressive.” Not everyone here is American, and not every American here votes Democratic, and not every American here is liberal.

#193 “A new nuclear power plant hasn’t been built in the US in decades.”

Good. I hope we can stop building them altogether; no one wants to have the waste in their backyards and they’re far from foolproof.

“Humans, simply by existing, disruput ecosystems.”

Alternately, humans are part of their ecosystems, like any other animals.

“Ecofascists…” this word tells me you’re unlikely to change your mind regardless of the evidence. I invite you to prove me wrong; what evidence would convince you of anthropogenic climate change? Or that people should halt climate change regardless of whether they caused it?

#202 Delysid… cash for clunkers replaced cars with other, more fuel-efficient cars. It didn’t replace cars with bikes.

#227 Firefighters are volunteers; their equipment still costs money. Most departments also do have at least a smattering of paid personnel.

#229 Everyone here is still not progressive.

#244 Really? I thought college tuition had skyrocketed due to predatory lending practices and people unethically preying on naive students to extort more and more money out of them because they are in the weakest position and cannot muster enough votes to defend themselves. They also often believe the lie that college will get them a job so that they can pay for college.

Seriously people we are starting to argue AGW politics ? Give me a break and stick to the medicine.

Delysid,

Sadly, the GOVERNMENT right now has the most guns and is full of people without ethics.

You make it sound like you are living in some military dictatorship, and that your government took power in an armed coup. You Americans voted your government in, and if you don’t like it you can vote in a different one. Unlike many people in the world, you live in a democracy, though you don’t appear to appreciate your good fortune one iota.

Saying “without government blah blah blah” is pure conjecture, and that conjucture is undeniable reality of what is already happening with the government. Sheesh!

My “blah blah blah” is not “pure conjecture”, it is based on centuries of history repeating itself over and over and over, with the strong inevitably exploiting the weak unless the people organize themselves to stop this from happening.

In contrast your, “Letting the market figure out solutions is the best way”, appears to be based on a childish utopian fantasy. A market is a system of rules agreed by those participating, so a “free market” is a contradiction in terms. There are always rules, and these rules are always set up to benefit those with the most power. It’s the very basis and definition of capitalism.

Letting the market figure out solutions is the best way of ending up with a population of slaves ruled over by a small number of wealthy people, as has been the case throughout most of history.

If you really think that what is happening in the US currently is anything similar to what happens where there is no government you are even more naive than I thought.

I don’t think many people in the developed world realize just how good things are for them. Many people in other parts of the world are living in utter misery, and people in our own countries lived in a similar manner less than a century ago.

It seems obvious to me that effective government is the main reason that our lives are so much better than they so easily could be. I’m amazed when people think we can do without that level of organization when we have hundreds of millions of people to keep fed, clothed, housed, transported, defended, policed etc etc.. Does anyone really believe that this happens magically without such organization? Sheesh indeed.

The list of scientists that oppose global warming theory that Delysis links to, is the usual assemblage of inexpert has-beens, cranks, sellouts, and compulsive contrarians. None of them have put forward an argument against the consensus that actually holds up to scrutiny.

Sorry, Delysid, for wasting your time here. I thought you were a rational individual one could engage in a productive discourse with. My mistake–your recent flurry of posts indicates otherwise, and that you live in a fantasyland where the invisible hand of the market conquers all ills.

@Krebiozen

So what you are saying, paraphrasing, is that “if I don’t vote I have no reason to complain, and if I do vote I have no reason to complain?”

What lovely anti-intellectualism? So because I love in a democracy I just have to accept what my government does as just? I’m jealous of people like you. It is stressful being burdened with rational thought. I wish I could be like you and just decide “who needs to think because the government does it for me!” The funniest part about this is that when Republicans or non-socialists are voted into office, people like you are screaming from the rafters about how they aren’t respecting the will of the people. Talk about cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy.

All of your fear-mongering about the market is conjecture. The failure of the state is an undeniable reality. How are you are on a science blog with such ignorance reality?

And about this “my childlike fantasy in the market.” Give me a break.

“It constantly amazes me that the defenders of the market are expected to offer certainty and perfection while government has only to make promises and express good intentions.” Lawrence Reed

Just ignore Delysid. He’s got a child’s mentality in a grown-up body. A case of over-educated for his intellectually abilities.

Once again the statists here are showing their identical genes to the biology quacks.

It’s magical thinking and false attribution. “Everything great that happens in our society happens because of government. The market would enslave us.”

You have basically admitted that you are so enamored by the State that you cannot even envision anything being done any differently. “The government is the alpha and omega. The government is the provider of wealth and prosperity. The government is the answer to all of society’s problems and there is no other way.”

@Krebiozen

You are speaking of government more fanatically and dogmatically than even the most intense worshipers of religion. Socialists worship the State with so much vigor that opposition to the State is deeply offensive. “How dare you question the democracy!”

But I should appreciate the government I live under because it’s worse other places, right? Nice logical fallacy.

You are so deep into the circular argument that the government is the alpha and the omega you can’t even pretend to think outside of the circle.

Wow.

@lilady

Yeah keep ignoring me. Keep ignoring anyone who demolishes your fallacious arguments and dismantles your hypocritical beliefs.

That’s what quacks do with science. “Just ignore logic and evidence and keep blindly believing in our preconceived prejudices. The government loves me.”

@lillady

Belief in personal freedom and responsibility is childlike, right? Questioning arbitrary authority is juvenile.

Adults have total dependence on the government, right? Adults know and trust that the State will make the best decisions for them. Adults don’t question authority or dogma. Adults believe what and do what they are told. Adults accept the system because it has good intentions. Adults proclaim that it is heresy to oppose the greatness of the father, the God, government. Also, Delysid is a racist, right?

Seems like we’ve got a major case of burning strawmen now…..believe we’ve gone far enough off-topic.

I never thought I’d hear Krebiozen being accused of not thinking for himself.
Live and learn.

Also, all of this mockery of the “invisible hand of the market” is just demonstrated non-existent understanding of economics.

The free-market is not a unified thing. It’s not a magical elf. It’s not a magic hand.

THE MARKET IS US. The market is hundreds of millions of individuals choosing the best way to do things. It is not an organized bureaucracy of a few hundred or few thousand people making decisions on behalf of millions. It is millions of individuals making decisions from the ground up.

Who do you people think policians are? Gods? They are just people They don’t know any better what is best for you than you do. There is a lot of insults about childlike behavior, but blind trust that a politician knows best for you is the definition of childlike. A child depends on others to make decisions for them, but even then only for awhile and they start becoming more and more independent. Becoming a collectivist/socialist/liberal/progressive means reverting back to a state even worse than a child with total trust that an unseen, barely accountable bureaucracy with an undeniable history of abuse and failure will make the best decisions for you. They take your money and resources, keep a lot for themselves, and then you act grateful that they are saving your life. “I love my socialist health care system I would be dying in a ditch without it!”

It’s a scam, the ultimate deceit. Not only have people been tricked into it, they defend the system with passionate anger! It’s voluntary slavery!

Like a said childlike mentality.

Meanwhile, when Ron Paul said “let them die” and was cheered on by the Tea Party sponsors of that Presidential Debate…Paul clarified his statement:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/09/tea-party-debate-audience-cheered-idea-of-letting-uninsured-patients-die/

ABC News Blogs > Politics > The Note
The Note

Headlines
Politics
Entertainment
Health
Lifestyle
Business
Technology

Tea Party Debate Audience Cheered Idea of Letting Uninsured Patients Die
Email 0 Smaller Font Text Larger Text | Print

By Amy Bingham
@Amy_Bingham
Follow on Twitter
Sep 13, 2011 1:48pm
gty ron paul dm 110913 wblog Tea Party Debate Audience Cheered Idea of Letting Uninsured Patients Die

Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul speaks during the presidential debate sponsored by CNN and The Tea Party Express at the Florida State fairgrounds, Sept. 12, 2011 in Tampa, Fla.

If it was up to Ron Paul, or many of the Tea Party audience members at Monday night’s GOP presidential debate, churches, not the federal government, would help foot the bill for the medical costs of America’s 50 million residents living without health insurance.

CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer’s hypothetical question about whether an uninsured 30-year-old working man in coma should be treated prompted one of the most boisterous moments of audience participation in the CNN/Tea Party Express.

“What he should do is whatever he wants to do and assume responsibility for himself,” Paul responded, adding, “That’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risk. This whole idea that you have to compare and take care of everybody…”

The audience erupted into cheers, cutting off the Congressman’s sentence.

After a pause, Blitzer followed up by asking “Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?” to which a small number of audience members shouted “Yeah!”

Paul, a doctor trained in obstetrics and gynecology, said when he got out of medical school in the 1960s “the churches took care of them.”

“We never turned anybody away from the hospital,” he said. “We’ve given up on this whole concept that we might take care of ourselves or assume responsibility for ourselves. Our neighbors, our friends, our churches would do it. That’s the reason the cost is so high.”

Ron Paul is right…the neighbors, our friends and the churches will pick up the slack…but only in Texas.

According to census data released Tuesday, the number of uninsured people rose by about 900,000 from 2009 to 2010, bringing the total number of people living in the United States without health coverage to 50.9 million, or 16.3 percent of the population.

Texas, where GOP candidate Rick Perry has served as governor for more than a decade and Paul has served as a U.S. Congressman for more than 20 years, has more uninsured people, as a percent of population, than any other state. In the Lone Star State 26 percent of the population does not have health insurance, according to census data compiled by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.

Delysimp, I am tired of reading your abusive words and condescension in your answers.
You are an obnoxious, pompous, puerile, little shitbeard who can’t see and doesn’t care for anything beyond the tip of your nose. The only thing global about you is the extent of your ignorance.
Learn how to speak nicely, and maybe I’ll address your issues some time later. Meanwhile, you can go and use a saguaro for your personal sextoy.

Delysid,

So what you are saying, paraphrasing, is that “if I don’t vote I have no reason to complain, and if I do vote I have no reason to complain?”

You live in a democracy, so you have a right to complain all you want. You also have a right to campaign for the political party you prefer, or even to start your own political party or to stand independently. Ain’t democracy great? In many parts of the world you would be shot for expressing the opinions you have expressed here.

What lovely anti-intellectualism?

What anti-intellectualism is that? I have studied these subjects in great depth at university, as well as having traveled to countries around the world. I’m basing my opinions on my education and experience. I am not anti-intellectual.

So because I love in a democracy I just have to accept what my government does as just?

You stated that having an elected government is equivalent to being ruled by those who have the most guns. It isn’t. I didn’t say you have to like it, I pointed out that you live in a democracy. If you don’t like it there are measures you can take to do something about it, very unlike the military dictatorship you claimed it is identical to.

I’m jealous of people like you. It is stressful being burdened with rational thought. I wish I could be like you and just decide “who needs to think because the government does it for me!”

That’s nasty. Wherever did I state any such thing? You appear to be losing your grip on this discussion.

The funniest part about this is that when Republicans or non-socialists are voted into office, people like you are screaming from the rafters about how they aren’t respecting the will of the people. Talk about cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy.

“People like you” – there’s a phrase that launched a thousand pogroms. You know nothing about me, or how I vote. I’m not American so I don’t vote Republican or Democrat. If I vote for a politician who breaks his/her pre-election promises I will complain, of course. How is this hypocritical?

All of your fear-mongering about the market is conjecture.

It isn’t conjecture, and you repeatedly claiming it is won’t make it so. I spent a year studying the anthropology of economics which looked at all the major western economic models as well as the way things work in different cultures, so I think I understand the subject reasonably well – I passed my university exams on the subject with distinctions if that means anything.

It seems clear to me that what people describe as a “free market” simply means a set of rules around exchanges of good and/or services that give them an advantage over others. It’s as simple as that.

The failure of the state is an undeniable reality.

The failure of the state to do what? Failure compared to what yardstick? Which specific state are you talking about and where is your evidence that a country without a government is anything other than a military dictatorship or a free-for-all for organized criminals?

I think you should spend a bit of time in some African or Asian countries. That might change your mind about how successful North American and European governments are.

How are you are on a science blog with such ignorance reality?

I think a lot of us are asking ourselves the very same question about you.

And about this “my childlike fantasy in the market.” Give me a break.

If you’re going to use quotation marks please quote accurately. I wrote:

In contrast your, “Letting the market figure out solutions is the best way”, appears to be based on a childish utopian fantasy.

If this isn’t just a fantasy, where can I see it in action? I can point to numerous historical examples of collapsed government leading to military dictatorship or lawless chaos. Where’s your evidence of libertarian free market bliss?

“It constantly amazes me that the defenders of the market are expected to offer certainty and perfection while government has only to make promises and express good intentions.” Lawrence Reed

Reed was talking about education in that quote. We have a free market in education, more or less, in the UK. What it means in practice is that only those with money get the best educations, which is why there are so many Old Etonians in the British government. Having known a number of people from that class, and their disdain for the poor and the working classes, I don’t think this is a good thing.

I’m certainly not satisfied with government making promises and expressing good intentions. I don’t trust government to perform properly without a boot constantly up its rear end. Government needs to be held to account by the people if it doesn’t fulfill its obligations. Democracy takes work to function properly – people need to get involved. Complaining and building ridiculous, utopian, libertarian fantasies is just hot air.

How are you involved in your local community and in making sure your government keeps to its obligations Delysid?

Delysid, direct question for you:

Identify five nations where the libertarian model of an unregulated free market actually worked as you claim it will. (And by ‘worked’ I don’t mean generated significant financial rewards for a privileged elite social class–I mean maintained public infrastructure, provided for the general welfare of all citizens, etc.)

Try as I may I cannot think of any.

Denice,

I never thought I’d hear Krebiozen being accused of not thinking for himself.
Live and learn.
Thanks [blushes]. Truth be told I have probably wasted far too much of my life “thinking outside the circle”. I have read lots of libertarian and anarchist literature over the years. I even used to describe myself as a libertarian for a while when I was in my 20s, before I had learned a bit about the world, through education, travel and talking to people from a wide range of backgrounds. In other words until I grew up a bit.

In my opinion the idea of living without anyone to tell you what to do is essentially a childish one, especially since we have so many examples of what happens if we try to live without rules. It’s a sort of rebellion against authority and society instead of joining in to see how things can really be improved through participating in government. I agree with Delysid that politicians “are just people”, but so is “the free market”, so I don’t see why he is so afraid of one but not the other.

I wish things were otherwise, I really do. The idea of everyone accepting “personal freedom and responsibility” and everything being lovely is very appealing, of course it is. However you only have to look at the world (organized crime and wars for example) to see how that would work out in practice. Go to Delhi and see how millionaires in mansions live side-by-side with people literally starving and dying in the streets.

Even if the majority of people do believe in “personal freedom and responsibility”, as I’m sure most people here do, there is a large minority of people who do not. What do you do about them? Once you start locking them up or shooting them, or even figuring out how to decide which ones should be locked up or shot, your utopian libertarian society is on its way to hell in a handcart.

Go to Delhi and see how millionaires in mansions live side-by-side with people literally starving and dying in the streets.

I think to Delysid’s mind that’s exactly how things are supposed to work. If the people starving next to the mansions aren’t happy, they should have made the choices which allowed them to become millionaires themselves. He rejects the notion the free market “winners” have any obligation, ethcial or otherwise, to ameliorate the suffering of the losers to any extent.

JGC,

He rejects the notion the free market “winners” have any obligation, ethcial or otherwise, to ameliorate the suffering of the losers to any extent.

I think (hope) he believes that people’s personal responsibility would lead them to help a neighbor who was starving. That often doesn’t seem to work in practice.

I think that part of the problem in India is a widespread belief that people have been born into the life conditions that benefit them, and that interfering is meddling with ‘the will of the gods’* and not really helping. We humans are good at rationalizing horrible behavior.

* I suspect that’s also why driving standards are so awful there, as there is a fatalistic belief in divine will, and no amount of skill or care will affect that.

Please don’t confuse what the men who run the Church teach and do with what the Church actually teaches.

maybe I’m doing him an injustice, but my guess is the principle he espoused @207 (“How about Bangladesh solves their own problems, eh?”) would apply to neighbors as well.

Damn! Clipboard error–haven’t had that in years.

Should have read:

I think (hope) he believes that people’s personal responsibility would lead them to help a neighbor who was starving.

maybe I’m doing him an injustice, but my guess is the principle he espoused @207 (“How about Bangladesh solves their own problems, eh?”) would apply to neighbors as well.

(Note to self–keep better track of what you’re arguing about and where in the future.)

@267 — if that’s a reply, it’s a completely incomprehensible one.

To clarify an earlier statement by Delysid about police:

There are a number of villages and unincorporated areas around here that have no organic police force. This doesn’t mean that there is no law enforcement presence.

Delysid conveniently forgets that the town in which he lives, like others in the same situation, has a contract with another jurisdiction (probably with the county) for Law Enforcement support.

So there are police in his nice safe town, they’re just not wearing “Village of XXX” on their uniforms.

Delysid, so let me get this straight. You see Sciencebloggers as playing the racist card when their views are not backed up by logic and evidence with respect to the issue of government control, yet, when some of us who have questions about vaccine safety/efficacy- let’s say the issue of children in developing countries being given mercury in their vaccines when it has been mostly discontinued in North America, or what about oral polio causing many cases of NPAFP in India – they throw that racist crap at us? Are you so special?

I visited a tropical island where vast differences in wealth were painfully apparent as well as rampant crime and a lack of concern for general health and environmental contamination- there was something unnerving about seeing people living in abject poverty- in the late 20th century not far from luxurious homes and resorts.

Similarly, I know a young tennis player ( now age 25) who came from Eastern Europe years ago: he had a cleft palate/ related conditions which were “repaired” in a very primitive fashion there – In the past few years, he was thrilled to get a modern reconstruction. He now speaks well, completed a degree, dates women and supports himself teaching kids tennis. He also pays taxes because he earns a reasonably good living.

I understand that 11th century Iceland was a libertarian paradise: read a saga sometimes.

THE MARKET IS US. The market is hundreds of millions of individuals choosing the best way to do things. It is not an organized bureaucracy of a few hundred or few thousand people making decisions on behalf of millions. It is millions of individuals making decisions from the ground up.

Where have I heard something like this before? Oh yeah – “Dictatorship of the Proletariat”. We all know how well that worked out.

jen,

when some of us who have questions about vaccine safety/efficacy- let’s say the issue of children in developing countries being given mercury in their vaccines when it has been mostly discontinued in North America, or what about oral polio causing many cases of NPAFP in India – they throw that racist crap at us?

You know perfectly well that thimerosal is still used in vaccines in developing countries because the use of multidose vials is far more common.. Thimerosal prevents bacterial and fungal contamination growing in the vials, something that is a very real risk in hotter climates. You also know that there is no reason to think that the tiny amounts of thimerosal cause any harm to anyone.

Equally I’m sure you are aware that NPAFP stands for non-polio acute flaccid paralysis – the clue is in the name. There has not been a huge increase in AFP caused by the polio vaccine, there has been a large increase in the number of recorded cases of AFP because of a shift from passive to active surveillance. “Approximately one case of vaccine-associated paralytic poliomyelitis (VAPP) occurs per 750 000 doses of trivalent OPV for the first dose given”. The polio eradication program in India has led to a fall in the incidence of acute flaccid paralysis (from polio or any other any cause) from 8.2 per 1000 in 1978 to 0.0111 per 1000 in 2013, a fall of more than 99%.

See, no accusations of racism, just rational argument.

Jen, by ” being given mercury in their vaccines when it has been mostly discontinued in North America”, you’re actually referring to individuals receiving vaccine formulations from multi-dose vials which incorporate Thimerosal as a preservative, correct?

Surely you’re aware that ‘thimerosal’ and ‘mercury’ are entirely different chemcial entities, and that there is no scentific evidence whatsoever indicating exposure to thimerosal as a result of immunization poses any detectable health risk?

One of the more frustrating things that I’ve noticed when talking to libertarians is that, if you ask 10 of them how things in general, and government in particular, would work in Libertopia, you get 12 different answers.

Less government and more freedom sounds really good, and I’d like that. As always, the devil is in the details, and that’s where libertarians can’t even agree amongst themselves, and one of the many reasons it will never be more than a fringe idea.

I did NOT say thermodynamics makes climate change impossible.

Your reading comprehension is terrible.

I’m saying that the doomsday predictions seem to counter-act the concept of thermodynamics.

And again, no one who actually knows thermodynamics even knows why you think thermodynamics is somehow incompatible with effects of global climate change that anyone with a functioning conscience (and brain) would certainly call catastrophic. But now that I’ve seen that your idea of a solution to “Entire nations become uninhabitable” is not “do what we can to prevent that scenario” but “let them move somewhere else” I’m not sure there’s any point pretending you have a grasp on this whole “reality” thing.

So, have there been any historical examples of any nation even making an attempt at libertarianism, and if so, what were the results?

I apologize to Orac and everyone here, with the obvious exception of Delysid, for my rant, #297. While I meant every word of it and I suspect others agree with me, I lost my temper and engaged him at his level.
So to move my part of things to a slightly higher level, here’s a short list of a few things that American government has done well.
1) The Tennessee Valley Authority.
2) The National Defense/Interstate Highway System.
3) The Louisiana Purchase and the Alaska purchase.
4) Multiple exploration expeditions: The Corps of Discovery, the Ex-Ex, the Byrd Expedition, Apollo, Cassini, Skylab, the ISS, the Mars Rovers.
5) The unprecedented and stunningly successful mobilization for World War 2 including the Civilian Pilot Training Program, the Zero Defects initiative, the Manhattan Project, and much more.
6) The GI Bill of Rights.
7) The transcontinental railroad system.
8) The Land Grant colleges.
9) The Civilian Conservation Corps.
10) The continuing cleanup of our air and water.
11) The National Parks system.
12) The Panama Canal.
13) The US Postal service – laugh if you want, but consider how much they do and how well most of it is done how much of the time and ask yourself if you could design a better system that does the same.
14) The National Weather Service – more joking aside, private enterprise could never have delivered so much information for so many purposes to so many people at the same cost.
Some of these things were purely government-conceived and -run; others were private-public co-operative efforts. Each of them was a stunning success that changed the nation and the world.
Not everything government has done has been so successful, but each of these is something private enterprise would and could never have undertaken alone, or accomplished quite so well. All of these have had results both good and bad that were not conceived of when they were started, except the GI Bill, which was an unqualified success. This list is of course not complete, not a detailed discussion, and there is much else I could say about them and more. But these are indisputable successes.

@Krebiozen By “you people” I mean collectivist. Collectivists are the same all around the world. American Democrat/socialists/progressive/liberalm, British Labour, French socialist or populist, and so on. You never read libertarian literature. You were never a libertarian who grew up. No one who ever had even the slightest grasp on libertarianism would speak like you do about the ideology. You are extremely well read in collectivist propaganda, as you spouted just about every standard talking point and logical fallacy there is regarding collectivism.

Few claims make me laugh like “I used to be a libertarian and then I grew up.” That would mean that you recognized the failure of the state and the economics of free-markets, then went back and decided that the government is the solution again. This is about as likely as an atheist deciding that he is now a Young Earth Creationist. I don’t doubt that somewhere this has happened, but I have yet to ever see this kind of conversion. The language in which you use to speak is symptomatic of “always been a collectivist and never knew anything besides collectivism.”

The proof of this is that you describe libertarianism as either chaos or a military dictatorship. You can’t even picture any other way.

It is a common argument to say “name 1 (or 5) libertarian societies as an example” like this is supposed to be a legitimate argument. As I pointed out in another comment, the market is everywhere, all the time. The market is in action when people are free to interact and buy and sell from each other. It’s not one thing. The free-market is not housed in the Kremlin, or th Parliment, or the White House. The free-market is the activity that happens when it is not being centrally planned and controlled by government.

Collectivists are so stuck in their mindset that they are demanding that the market solves all of the world’s problems. This is the fantasy of government that is being projected onto it.

If people want health care, the market supplies health care. It’s the law of supply and demand.

It’s so ironic that you chose India as you example of why we need government. India is a recent colony of the British Empire and has been ruled by socialists and a deeply intrenched forced caste system since its independence. You think the free-market and capitalism have been harming India?! Do you think the moon heats up the sun, too?

You keep repeating in multiple comments that freedom leads to hell, yet you have offered no proof besides generic “centuries of observation taught us this.”

No it didn’t Governments throughout the world have failed. Free people don’t go to war. Governments go to war. Free people don’t have prisons. Governments have prisons. The British government has millions of security cameras around London. The US NSA is spying on every American.

Krebiozen, you are not saying anything new. You are repeating the same tired myths over and over. I could be talking to Piers Morgan and I wouldn’t know the difference.

Anarchy is not chaos.
Collectivism is not freedom.
The government does not create wealth. The market creates wealth. The government redistributes wealth.
Every nation in the world having aspects of socialism does not justify the ethics nor effectiveness of socialism.
The intention of doing good is not the same thing as the consequence of doing good. The market does not have to declare that it is saving the world to actually do so. The government declaring it will save the world is laughable horseshit that only a fool would believe.

@Old Rockin Dave

Nice list. The government is not always wrong. Good work. IN 200 years I would hope that the US government did at least a few things right.

Now just about everything else in your life that we use was the work of markets. Hell even the roads you drive on were contracted out to private businesses.

Now the list of what government has failed at is too much to even begin to tackle.

And oh yeah, the market does mail service better than USPS as well. Heard of a company called FedEX?

The market does everything more efficiently, cheaper, and of higher quality than government. Everything. The private sector is even taking over for NASA.

@Johnny

Libertopia?

Are we living in Governmentopia? When is the government going to create the utopia you are promising? Isn’t the government the same thing as nirvana? Why hasn’t this happened yet?

From PubMed, and similarly CDC, FDA and USDA:

“Due to the lapse in government funding, PubMed is being maintained with minimal staffing. Information will be updated to the extent possible, and the agency will attempt to respond to urgent operational inquiries.”

Then FTC: “Unfortunately, the Federal Trade Commission is closed due to the government shutdown.”

“Due to the Federal government shutdown,
NOAA.gov and most associated web sites
are unavailable.

Only web sites necessary to protect lives
and property will be maintained.”

Well, we will soon be living in your libertarian utopia. Though it would have been helpful if we knew of other countries that were doing it successfully.

The market does everything more efficiently, cheaper, and of higher quality than government. Everything.

How’s that market-funded basic sciences research going? Oh wait, there’s basically none.

The private sector is even taking over for NASA.

And you believe this is because the private sector can do NASA’s job “more efficiently, cheaper, and of higher quality”? Oh, honey.

@AdamG

NASA’s scientist are moving to the private sector, so yes. It is going to take time, obviously, but the private space industry will develop if there is a demand.

@Chris

The government is failing. There is no “libertarian utopia.” That is you trying to use the nirvana fallacy.

@Everyone

The free-market is not a bureaucracy and it is not housed in the White House or the Kremlin. The free-market is not a magical being or an “invisible hand.” It is not a shadowy group of people promising to make all of your dreams come true (while robbing you). This is the fantasy of government being projected to the free-market.

The free-market is us. As such, the market is everywhere, all the time. It is 300 million people interacting, serving each other, competing with each other, and prospering.

Whenever people attack the free-market they are almost always falsely attributing everything they hate about government.

@AdamG

Ask Orac how much he enjoys begging for government grant money.

There is resarch and development being done in the private sector. Did you know that the first sequencing of the human genome was done privately by Celera?

A lot more private research could be done if the governmetn did steal trillions in taxes from society every year.

Also are you aware of crowdfunding? That seems to be gaining steam.

Have you heard of crowdfunding?

delysid: “The government is failing.”

So which government on this planet is succeeding in your expert opinion.

By the way, one thing I dislike are blanket comments that “this or that is failing” without any details. It is like telling me that “farming is failing”, yet there are still produce available at the local supermarket. Or other such nonsense.

Do explain what private company has taken over weather forecasting, which includes launching satellites.

What private company operates the satellite system used in your GPS system. Or do you just rely on good old fashioned maps?

@ Delysid,

I’m agnostic and I don’t have any political leaning except, my experience was better with leftish policies: grants for school that I don’t have to pay back; but, I am willing to be converted. Keep in mind that I won’t let my skepticism at the door but here, I offer you a really fair occasion to convince me. The offer still stand.

What would help me is an education as either software engineering or industrial engineering. Okay? Under the socialist regime, I get grants that I don’t have to reimburse and in the process makes some peoples extremely jealous (my psychopath ex-flatmate among other. He didn’t want to pay taxes for me). Under a libertarianism regime, what could I rely on to get financing (and I’m okay if it need to be repaid).

I’m not asking you to base your judgement on canada or Quebec, just imagine I live in Louisville, KY for the exercise, or Silicon Valley while you’re at it; I do plan to make a part of my career in the state.

Clear enough?

Alain

@Chris

Which government is succeeding? None. Some are less authoritarian than others, but none are good.
Societies across the world are succeeding in spite of their governments.

Thalidomide? Oh that’s a good one./s No one knew the important biological impact of enantiomers, not even government. It is fortunate that the mistake was caught before more damage was caused, but the FDA overreacted and thalidomide was blocked from potential uses for years.

Delysid, while you were busy condescending, you failed to notice that I said the list was far from comprehensive.
The Postal Service? I can send a letter from Key West to Kodiak for the same price as to the next zipcode over and I can trust it will get there. They go everywhere every day (yes, I know, exceptions, but they are minor), and failures are unusual. If the bizarre requirement that USPS has to fund its pension system for seventy-five years in advance, it would work even better.
Our regulatory system is the envy of many countries around the world. Our regulations support private enterprise. If you buy a fleet of trucks for your company, you can usually trust that they are made to a certain standard of safety. Order beef for your restaurant, and it has been inspected. Your house has more than likely been built to code, and your neighbors are not permitted to do things with their property that are dangerous to you, or that seriously inconvenience you. I have been to places where the people and their businesses have only the protections and assurances they can buy or bribe. Want to live like that?

delysid: “There is resarch and development being done in the private sector. Did you know that the first sequencing of the human genome was done privately by Celera? ”

With a head start by using data from the publicly paid for and available GenBank. Not a good example.

delysid: ” but the FDA overreacted and thalidomide was blocked from potential uses for years.”

Actually that was a worldwide reaction, not just the FDA. Those who were affected were part of the reason for the delay. See this: http://retroreport.org/the-shadow-of-thalidomide/

Remember it was not just a USA phenomena, it affected regulation in other countries.

So where is that country which has successfully created a government that you like?

@Chris

The US government is the largest and most powerful entity in the history of the world, and it has unlimited money which it can print and tax from the people. Of course a private company is going to have a hell of a time competiting with the Federal government when it directs serious resources to a project. Give me a break. The governmetn has way more money it can use to start enormous projects. This isn’t even a debate.

Orbital Sciences Corp. just launches.

AccuWeather is a media company, and gets its data from the National Weather Service and other government paid entities like the military.

Exactly how many weather satellites do they own? Provide links.

“If the bizarre requirement that USPS has to fund its pension system for seventy-five years in advance, it would work even better.”
If the requirement *was lifted*.

@Chris

No governments Chris. No governments are satisfactory for me. If I wanted to start a project, don’t you think it would be a lot easier if I robbed you, Orac, Khani, Alain, Dave, and everyone else in this thread and used your money to do what I wanted? Then if I ran out I could just rob you all again. Or I could have the Federal Reserve send money into my bank account.

That power doens’t make the government better! It makes it worse. But this gives it the ability to fly into space faster than the private sector. The private sector doesn’t have the power to steal.

Shay, he has not yet told us what country is working well with his approved form of government.

Oh, and India… I remember when someone said that education in the USA was failing because India was producing several more engineers and scientists. I found that amusing since literacy in India is only at 62%. Bad comparison.

@Chris

How many private companies have tanks and fighter jets and nuclear weapons and mass murder people around the world? Name one. Let’s flip this around. Tell me.

@Shay

For a group of people in a science blog all of you are sure dense as hell. The government has the power to steal as much money as it wants. Of course it is rich.

@Delysid,

It seem to me you don’t actually read our comments? It also seem to me you haven’t developed a theory of mind worth a grain of salt about all of us too? Robbing us? Keep dreaming in color.

Alain

@Chris

I TOLD YOU NO GOVERNMENTS WORK WELL.

Is your mind so obsessivly one-track that you can’t even comprehend this answer?

@Alain

I’m trying to read the comments. Different people keep saying the same things over and over. I’m suspicious that no one is reading my comments.

A “libertarian regime?” What does that mean? The whole point of libertarianism is that you are free in your own pursuits and there is a governmetn controlling the market.

Did you read the long post I sent you about the cost of educatin and why it skyrocketed? Before government intervention it used be easy to work your way through school. I sent you a link in which Peter Schiff talks about it for 15 minutes with sources. I already answered this question for you. School used to be affordable.

@Shay

Actually the government is not rich. It is in massive debt and running a huge deficit. It steals as much as it wants and it is still drastically outspends what it takes in. Any business that conducted business like the government would fail miserably. Government doesn’t have incentive to be efficient or offer high quality because it gets its money from taxation. This is Econ 101.

Well, t’was interesting speaking about politics and balloon filled with hot air but this distract me from a good project of porting google’s map / reduce and a number of goodies to a Parallella cluster which I’ll buy soon.

Alain

Did you read the long post I sent you about the cost of educatin and why it skyrocketed?

Yes.

Before government intervention it used be easy to work your way through school.

Okay, I’ll take that at face value.

I sent you a link in which Peter Schiff talks about it for 15 minutes with sources.

Offtopic and you’ll see why in a moment.

I already answered this question for you.

No.

School used to be affordable.

They’re no longer and I need a solution for that. Don’t you understand that we’re not coming back to low prices? Not anymore. What is your solution to the actual problem that I need to pay 32 000$ each year to louisville.edu for my education? How do I come up with that?

Alain

@Alain

The solution is to dismantle Sallie Mae and get the government out of student loans. It’s a no-brainer.

@Alain

You arren’t getting it. You have to ask WHY school costs $38,000 a semester.

You can’t just start with “here’s a fucked up situation governmnt created, now how is libertarianism going to fix it?”

We have to figure out why things turned into what they did. Cause and effect.

Ask Orac how much he enjoys begging for government grant money.

I like begging pharmaceutical companies for money even less. They always have a lot of conditions and strings on their money, far more than the government, and right now getting pharmaceutical funding is no easier than getting NIH funding.

@Orac

You should have done something with smoking or HIV. The NIH seems to love throwing millions of dollars at those causes. One of my profs has a 1.5 million dollar grant to study the effects of smoking on gingiva. Like we don’t know enough about that, yet. There has been enough money sent to HIV research in that it equals 10 million dollars or so per amino acid of the HIV virus.

I figured getting private money would be more difficult than NIH honestly. The point I was trying to make is that the NIH isn’t exactly the conveniance of a drive-thru when it comes to grant money.

A lot more private research could be done if the governmetn did steal trillions in taxes from society every year.

So this would just happen because The Magical Free Market will make it so? And you call us religious. Even still, would this magical free market fund less flashy, but still essential basic research? This is why ‘crowdfunding’ is such a naive answer: the people deciding what science to fund should be other scientists.

Also, how the hell is this an argument that private research would be “more efficient, cheaper, and of higher quality”? That’s the claim I’m disputing, remember?

You’re applying selective skepticism, Delysid. Yes, there are those on the left that are too quick to jump to government as a solution, but you’re their mirror image; too quick to trust ‘the market,’ too blind to the areas where government succeeds.

@delysid: WHEN was it possible to go to college with just help and a part-time job? Certainly not in MY memory, my parents’ memories, or my grandparents. Easy to work your way through school? Not likely. Not unless your parents had savings bonds, loans they didn’t tell you about, and a lot of other helps. My grandmother had to quit college when the stock market crashed. My grandfather only finished college- and medical school – with a lot of loans, family gifts, and working nearly full time during school PLUS full time or more during vacations. And professors then – and now – got paid a lousy wage.

My dad and his brothers had it a little better – children of professors got reduced or no cost tuition. And they lived at home, so no dorm costs. So their college educations only cost book costs.

My mom and her brothers had WWII savings bonds and some savings to go on. Also scholerships, loans and family scrimping and savings.

I don’t know WHERE you got this idea of college utopia. Try reading real letters and talking to people.

I’d thought, at first, that you were intelligent as you were pro-vaccine. Then the libertarian/anti-government in all things came out. You’re so young, child. You will learn.

Delysid, aw sorry. No government satisfies your free market needs. That is just too bad. Perhaps you need to create your own somewhere else.

Delysid: “A lot more private research could be done if the governmetn did steal trillions in taxes from society every year.”

Except a couple of your examples used tax funded information sources.

AdamG: “Also, how the hell is this an argument that private research would be “more efficient, cheaper, and of higher quality”? That’s the claim I’m disputing, remember?”

Again, they do it by using the tax funded information systems like the National Weather Service and GenBank.

Orac: “I like begging pharmaceutical companies for money even less. ”

With the added bonus of being accused of being in the pay of Big Pharma, and therefore a “shill.”

And since tax funded research funds are bad, and then it is bad to be paid by Big Pharma, I assume that there exists some universe where all research funding is from charitable donations.

I say that two libertarians can’t agree where to eat lunch, and our resident libertarian responds bysaying that government doesn’t provide a utopia.

You have made it clear, delysid, that no government on this earth meets your ideal. I suspect that no government ever has. Fine, I’ll accept that. I feel that I can say, without fear of contradiction, that two people can’t live together without a little compromise, a little give and take, a few flies in the ointment.

Please point me to any citation, WWW or otherwise, that lays out the rules of a society that you and twenty of your closest friends would like to live under. I am assuming that your perfect society will have a few rules, so please tell me where I can read about them.

@MI Dawn

Believe it it goes both ways. I see science blogs and get excited about smart people, then I discover it’s a bunch of progressives and socialists, fraternal twins of biology quacks. College was never free. Relative debt was less for college graduates, but it was never a utopia. This seems to be a favorite of the commenters on this blog, the nirvana fallacy. Defend the government at all costs and from all failures- hold the market to utopia standards.

@Chris

Every government across the world is too authoritarian. I guess that means you win! We live in your government utopia, right? Or are governments too small and weak for your liking?

@AdamG

What you don’t seem to understand is that government succeeding still comes at the price of freedom. Any money it spends it has to take from others. Government doesn’t produce wealth. It redistributes it.

I think I”m done with this thread. I’ve never commented here before because I was rolling my eyes about the continuous progressive-circlejerk, and this exchange has just confirmed it.

“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.” Bastiat

Also, happy partial government shut down today.

Hopefully you guys remain safe from the pillaging and chaos that occurs without parts of the government operating.

Delysid: “Every government across the world is too authoritarian”

Ah, again with the generalities. Of course, it also shows that along with forgetting American history and government in high school, you don’t have a clue on what happens in the rest of the world. I hear Somalia has very limited government, and has some nice beaches.

Plus I have lived in South and Central America where the government was often either bent over backwards to comply with the wishes of those with money, or was trying to wrestle back some kind of control from the oligarchy (one has gone totally wacky socialist in the other direction and that is also not good). Sometimes the “free market” includes some folks hiring their own private armies. Guerrilla warfare in the city is something most American kids don’t have to deal with.

By the way, my high school chemistry teacher was murdered by the thugs of one of those country’s dictators. They were a “fun” bunch.

You really don’t have a clue. Though you might be interested in this comic.

The problem with libertarianism (which seems to be the new term for what would have been called anarchy 100 years ago) is that it can’t survive first contact with reality. Too many libertarians seem to think that they’ll have the upper hand in their unregulated society, by virtue of what I can only guess.

Absence of central authority works wonderfully well for those who have all the money and the weapons. It does not work at all for anyone else. Like Chris, I have spent time in parts of the world where government no longer exists.

It’s “Lord of the Flies” but with bullets.

Delysid might consider reading this article:

http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1968576,00.html

Gee, you mean Haiti, which was ruled for decades by left-wing dictators is worse than Chile? People are confusing left-wing dictatorships with “no government.” Somalia was ruled by a left-wing dictator for decades as well. Governments destroy these countries, yet it’s always anarchy or the market that is blamed. It’s the endless circular argument of false attribution.

How about we use the United States pre WWI as an example? It had an extremely weak federal government and yet become a world super-power. The greatest prosperity in the history of the world developed thanks for what was the most free economy in the history of the world. No central banks, no universal health care, no other savage socialism.

Anybody ever notice how governments always find “evidence” to support government-run programs? No matter what happens governments defend their own existence? No matter what happens governments always find excuses for more intervention?

The WHO, for instance, made of representatives from socialized programs all over the world determine that socialized systems are the best, and the US is one of the worst! That’s just fact, right?!

When defenders of the free-market defend anti-government economic policies, that is just because they are greedy!

Every person in this thread is stuck in the same loop.

The government is right because the government says it’s right.

It’s like “The Bible is fact because it says so in the Bible.”

I came out of the indoctrinated progressive coma every single child in America is brought up in through the media and public schools. Why can’t you?

How can educated middle aged otherwise intellectuals be stuck in a lifetime of a government circle?

When does it become too much? When does a progressive/socialist finally say “you know what, maybe the government isn’t the alpha and the omega? Maybe I have been misled?”

So now that there is no government (left or right) to speak of in Haiti and none at all in Somalia for several years now, how come a functional libertarian society has not managed to evolve?

You seem to be forgetting that the US did not become a prosperous superpower until after (and because of) WWII. In 1939 our military ranked 39th (after such mighty exemplars as Portugal and Finland).

Delysid: “Gee, you mean Haiti, which was ruled for decades by left-wing dictators is worse than Chile?”

The 1973 to 1990 dictatorship was installed by the US government. It probably put Chile back at least a decade.

“How about we use the United States pre WWI as an example? It had an extremely weak federal government and yet become a world super-power.”

Hi, have you heard of the Panama Canal? It was a project in Colombia that was started by the French, who realized it was too much trouble (apparently a mountain range is harder to dig through than a desert, especially with mosquitoes that carry both malaria and yellow fever). The USA thought it was a cool idea, so they created a “revolution” to make a certain Colombian province “free.’ Then they created a special 10 mile wide “zone” that cut through the new country to build a huge canal.

Obviously your history knowledge of the USA, especially about its “manifest destiny” and “big stick policy” is very limited. Did you actually take American history in high school?

Delysid, are you serious? The Duvaliers were “left-wing” dictators? Your definition of left-wing must be more stretchable than Silly Putty.
The libertarians keep telling us that when the free market is established everyone will act out of enlightened self-interest and we’ll have an Earthly paradise. It’s the exact mirror-image of the Communists – all the bad stuff will go away once “true communism” is established. Or the Salafists – we just need everyone in the world subscribing to the same austere brand of Islam. All of it completely ignoring human nature, which will somehow undergo a complete transformation if we can just get this house of cards built and stable. In the meantime, anyone who acts contrary to the supposed ideals is dismissed with the “no true Scotsman” fallacy – “no true libertarian/communist/Muslim/what-have-you” would ever behave in such a way”.

#352 It’s only an anecdote, but my parents did pay for college by working full-time only in the summers. Caveat: They may have also received some grants and scholarships (they are pretty intelligent people).

Delysid: Many people here are arguing with you, so you likely missed my question above.

What evidence would convince you of anthropogenic climate change? Or that people should halt climate change regardless of whether they caused it? What are your criteria?

Thanks for the link to the comic Chris – I thought the repeated use of “Collectivists” was a tell for something, now I know what. I also find the use of the term “progressives” as a pejorative hilarious. Delysid and his ilk really do want to roll back progress and are extremely anti-utilitarian.

I wonder why Delysid resents government funding of research on HIV so much?

His arguments against AGW parallel those used by creationists right down to the list of “scientists” (which includes the a bunch of MDs, Dentists, Engineers, Veterinarians etc.) who “dissent” from the consensus.

Delysid – you accuse us of being ignorant of economics – how many university economics courses have you taken? I took 4, (macro, micro, and 2 Petroleum Economics). As for thermodynamics, I suspect you think a Rankine cycle is something that an “ecofascist ” is trying to force you to trade your car for.

@MI Dawn

You’re so young, child. You will learn.

– one can only hope.

@ORD

Your definition of left-wing must be more stretchable than Silly Putty.

This reminds me of one of the early Fawlty Towers episodes where Basil Fawlty offers the cook a fraction of the money that an American guest proffered to persuade the cook to work overtime and the cook holds Basil’s feet to the fire for more money. Basil reluctantly gives in and mutters “That’s Socialism for you” to which the cook replies in a working class accent “No, that’s the Free Market”.

…And people have still not answered my question re: historical attempts to establish a libertarian government in a country and the results thereof. If there were any, menioning the results would be germane to the argument already in progress. (And maybe would settle a few things….)

Delysid,

You never read libertarian literature. You were never a libertarian who grew up. No one who ever had even the slightest grasp on libertarianism would speak like you do about the ideology. You are extremely well read in collectivist propaganda, as you spouted just about every standard talking point and logical fallacy there is regarding collectivism.

You sound like a typical religious convert. You really can’t believe that anyone can take a long, hard, educated look at libertarianism and conclude it’s unworkable in practice, can you? I’m not just “extremely well read in collectivist propaganda”, I have been reading, talking and thinking about this subject, and looking at it from every perspective I can imagine for more than three decades*, and I have expressed my conclusions thus far.

Don’t get me wrong, if we lived on a planet full of people who were all capable of accepting personal freedom and responsibility and willing to do so, perhaps libertarianism could work. But we don’t, we live in the real world, not your fantasy version of it.

Would that Indian millionaire with the beggar starving to death outside his gate miraculously acquire feelings of responsibility in a libertarian society? In the US the government taxes the rich man and gives the poor man welfare, in a society without such rules the poor man mostly dies. I don’t want to live in a society like that.

Anyway, I’m not wasting any more my time on a someone who accuses me of lying. I suggest you learn a bit more about history and economics (from a reputable source) and spend some time traveling outside the US. Then you will perhaps understand why my views have changed over the last 30 years.

I’m guessing you are young. You are clearly very naive and inexperienced. You might try to develop a bit of respect for people with more education and experience than you. You can learn a lot that way.

* My interest in libertarianism started with reading Robert Anton Wilson’s works, and led me to read a stack of literature on the subject, and hanging out with some interesting like-minded people. I ended up corresponding with RAW and I’m proud to say he became a personal friend, though we never met IRL.

Lucario, I think the closest this world has ever come to a functional utopian society could be found in the Shakers.

If this has been answered already, I apologize.

For our libertarian friends, should the government be involved in the following things?

– Military
– Intelligence gathering
– Firefighting
– Police
– Health care
– Worker safety
– Minimum wage
– Drug policy
– Freeways
– Energy infrastructure
– Transportation safety standards
– Science
– Pollution cleanup

Let’s start with those.

Pre-World War I America? Child labor? Raw sewage and industrial pollutants dumped directly into tidal creeks and waterways? Unsafe working conditions, often resulting in disasters like the Triangle Shirtwaist fire? Racial discrimination at every level of society, etc., etc.?

That’s your model for a working libertarian nation?

@Lucario:

…And people have still not answered my question re: historical attempts to establish a communist government in a country and the results thereof. If there were any, menioning the results would be germane to the argument already in progress. (And maybe would settle a few things….)

See how that sounds?

@JGC: “That’s your model for a working libertarian nation?”

Well, that’s not fair. We just didn’t give market forces sufficient time to work out the kinks. Snirk.

College was never free. Relative debt was less for college graduates, but it was never a utopia.

It is free where I come from… the USA isn’t the whole world!

How about we use the United States pre WWI as an example? It had an extremely weak federal government and yet become a world super-power. The greatest prosperity in the history of the world developed thanks for what was the most free economy in the history of the world. No central banks, no universal health care, no other savage socialism.

Except for the ninety percent taxes on the incomes of the richest.

And where do you get “greatest prosperity in the history of the world” from? Perhaps you just mean the history of the world up to then?

I do love the “savage socialism”. Like it’s a rampaging free-range bear.

Also, “greatest prosperity” is absolutely hilarious. Prosperity for who?

Shay,
I recently got chatting to a man from a local community in East London UK that I have seen around for years. I had assumed from their dress that they were Amish, or Mennonites of some description but the man told me they are part of the Bruderhof, an international Christian group that don’t believe in personal property, and live communally, making money from the land and through publishing and making children’s toys. There are some similarities to the Shakers. It was somewhat surprising to discover that there is a branch of this community close to where I live.

I was initially intrigued, as the idea of a simple life living off the land sounds appealing, but on a moment’s reflection I think the way the Bruderhof (and the Shakers for that matter) live is not as utopian as it first sounds. The Christian and anti-technology aspects alone would be unacceptable to me , and I value my freedom, my privacy and my personal property too much. I also found that these simple Christian folks have had a number of vicious-sounding in-fights over dogma (musical instruments – of the devil or not? – for example). No thanks!

I’m reminded of when I was in Egypt some years ago doing some anthropological fieldwork. I mentioned to an Irish woman I had met out there how nice it was that they has such a close-knit community, and how everyone supported each other (of the same religion), and how I envied them as I lived in a more or less anonymous city where I barely knew my neighbors.

She erupted and ranted for several minutes about how suffocating living in a similarly close-knit community in an Irish village was, and how you couldn’t do anything without the entire village knowing your business. Every silver lining has a cloud, I guess.

I still think that the kind of democracies that have evolved in Europe and North America are probably the best way of organizing countries on the planet, despite their many serious problems and shortcomings.

I don’t think Delysid would feel any change to society was necessary. If someone wants hire children there should be no impediments–if the chidlren don’t want to work 12 hours a day for 7 cents an hour in unsafe conditions they can simply find work elsewhere. If someone wants to refuse to sell to or serve members of racial minorities they should be allowed to do so without penalty (see delysid’s post @217).

I think this really is an example of the society Delysid yearns for, where the central principle is “I got mine, Jack!”.

JGC — you forgot the Johnstown Flood. A classic example of market forces (rich sportsmen vs blue-collar immigrants) at work.

Krebiozen:

Not only does everyone know everyone else’s business, they know it for four generations back.

Those who do not know history are doomed to make jackasses out of themselves in front of those who do:

Catherine Young and Family
Workforce, 1913
Cannery Row, 1913
Meet the Mauros, 1911
Breaker Boys, 1911

“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides—excuse me—I don’t know that.”

“But you might know it,” observed the gentleman.

“It’s not my business,” Scrooge returned. “It’s enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people’s. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!”

I think this really is an example of the society Delysid yearns for, where the central principle is “I got mine, Jack!”.

You’re forgetting “maybe the Bangladeshi should solve their own problems”, which is of course the ubiquitous libertarian scratch-n-sniff for “why should I care about some darkies halfway across the world, if they just work harder they can solve it themselves”.

The 90% tax rate myth.

http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/21/krugmans-twinkie-defense/

Also I can’t help but notice how liberals love to be in majority opinion, as part of the mob. Groupthink and conformity is very exciting. I’m suspicious that this is why collectivists despise individual liberty- it’s a deep, innate and primitive desire to be a part of the pack. Collectivists view the government them- as safety in numbers.

I dare one of you to go debate a group of libertarians away from the inevitable circlejerks in these blogs.

Also to the people who keep bringing up Ayn Rand: LMFOA. Because Ayn Rand is the goddess of libertarianism right and everyone agrees with her about everything?

All people are doing is attacking personalities and characters instead of the libertarian ideology itself.

But then again progressvism is a mishmash of hypocrisies that is intellectually undefendable without using a barrage of logical fallacies. Ad hominum, strawmen, circular reasoning, poisoning the well, majority rule, and every other logical fallacy that can be spewed.

I’m speaking to the substance of your posts and pointing out that to date you’ve offered absolutely no evidence supporting the repeated assertion “NO GOVERNMENTS WORK WELL” (most recently @341) as well as no example of a Libertarian society that functioned as well or better than the USA’ democratic republic or even any convincing argument that would suggest a Libertarian society where the only actor is free market forces alone could be expected to perform as well or better than democratically elected state and federal governments.

The one attempt at providing such an example–pre-WWI America–is a non-starter, due to the deficiencies I noted in my post abve: free market forces did not resolve the problems posed by child labor, unsafe working conditions, industrial pollution, endemic racial discrimnation, etc.

But guess what? State and Federal government eventually would.

Wow it’s been a while since a hard-core Paultoid showed up here (where have you gone, Grandma Marsha…?) Nice try at a citation there Delysid, but Tucker Carlson’s vanity website isn’t exactly an unbiased source. You might as well cite the Washington Examiner or WorldNetDaily.

I’m going to refrain from comment since I can see it will be misinterpreted/ignored like everyone else’s, and just post a link to the far more knowledgeable Thomas Frank: http://www.salon.com/2013/10/02/reaching_for_the_pillars_the_conservative_plan_is_sabotage/

@Edith

And then you link to a biased, opinion hit piece on Salon. What a hypocrite.

Thank you for further proving my claims about progressive hypocrisy and spewing one logical fallacy after another.

“I dare one of you to go debate a group of libertarians away from the inevitable circlejerks in these blogs.”

Well, from what I can tell in order to be a good libertarian, you have to disregard all history that disagrees with what you want it to be.

And the Ayn Rand comic was just an amusing side note. My favorite depiction of her and her fan boys was written by Tobas Wolff in his book Old School. You, by the way, are projecting the same attitude and image. It is the very epitome of group think, yet you think you are being oh so original. It is actually quite amusing.

So let me give a summary of all of the arguments I have seen here. Please add if I’ve missed anything.

1. Somalia
2. Racism
3. Ron Paul’s Newsletters
4. The life of Ayn Rand
5. The lack of any libertarian governments
6. Flooding
7. The invisible hand
8. Anarchy=chaos
9. Industrial pollution
10. 90% tax rates
11. WHO opinion surveys
12. Roads
13. The nirvana fallacy regarding ” market libertopia”
14. Majority rule in democracy
15. The fictional book Lord of the Flies
16. Satellites and Meteorology
17. A military (because war is beneficial to society, I guess?)
18. “fuck you I’ve got mine”
19. Firefighters would let buildings burn to ground or conduct mob wars

I think this is pretty exhaustive.

The government does not create wealth. The market creates wealth.

This line gets trotted out all the time, and I’ll be damned if I can find any sort of semantic payload in it. What is this quantity ‘wealth’, W? What are its properties, aside from not being conserved? Is it monotonically increasing, or can it be destroyed? Are the operators ‘create’ and ‘destroy’ completely independent, rather than having a well-defined functional mapping? Was there a time such that W(t) = 0? At which it was undefined? What is its ontological status? Can it exist in isolation, such that it can be distributed to me and I will still have it if I cease to engage the market? If not, where does it go, and how does it get back from there if I return? Etc., etc.

@Narad

How does the market create wealth?

Easy.

Picture that Narad, Delysid, and Orac are stranded on uninhabited desert island. All 3 of us need food, so Orac wades into the ocean to catch fish with his bare hands. He fails and catches no fish.

Narad sees Orac failing to catch anything, so he comes up with an idea. He finds a stick, then he spends time and energy whittling that stick into a spear. With that spear Narad begins to catch fish.

That spear is now capital. That spear and the fish that can be caught with it are wealth that was created where no wealth existed before.

Now let’s say Narad is a selfish greedy asshole libertarian who keeps all of the fish he catches to himself and won’t share with Delysid or Orac.

Okay, fine. While Narad is busy whittling spears and fishing, Orac figures out to bend sticks into a shelter, a hut. Orac has now created capital for himself and has something to trade with Narad for his fish. Both people benefit from trading with each other. This is the market, this is capitalism.

Now let’s say Delysid declares himself as leader of government of the island. Delysid gains power by tricking Orac and Narad that both of them want to kill the other one, and that only Delysid can keep them safe. He then sits on his ass most of the day while occasionally telling Orac how to build and Narad how to fish even though he knows less than both of them. Delysid then takes a portion of the work of them in taxes and defends it as the greater good and benefiting all of them.

Both Narad and Orac refuse to stop Delysid because they believe that without his role as government the island will resort to anarchy and war and starvation.

That is how government works.

Delysid – Thomas Frank also had a column in the Wall Street Journal for a couple of years. Is the WSJ part of the great Collectivist Conspiracy too?

And BTW, Frank started out from ideological roots very similar to your own – he just went in a different direction. No wonder you’re afraid to read it, he’s got your number.

@Narad

How does the market create wealth?

Perhaps you’d like to read more closely. That wasn’t the question.*

That spear and the fish that can be caught with it are wealth that was created where no wealth existed before.

So you’re asserting that it’s impossible for the government to create anything that (1) never existed before and (2) has some form of utility?

@Delsyid – so, please enlighten us as to any area on Earth, in human history, where your “ideal” was ever put into practice & proved to be successful?

@Narad

When did I say that “it is impossible for the government to create wealth?” It’s possible, but the government mostly taxes and prints money rather than produces anything.

@Lawrence

If every country in the world had institutionalized slavery to harvest crops, and I said that this system is wrong, would you say “but without the slaves who would pick the cotton? Name one country that doesn’t have slaves?”

Your argument is a logical fallacy.

@Lawrence

I’ll ignore you condescending fallacy and still answer your question.

What society started libertarian ideals?

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Guess what. It failed. The Constitution and the Republic failed to uphold limited government. Now we have the most massive government in the history of the world.

Now progressives cheer the failure of libertarianism by the existence of the current massive State by defending the existence of the State because libertarianism would fail. The irrational “logic” is ridiculous.

When did I say that “it is impossible for the government to create wealth?”

You’re now going to maintain that

The government doesn’t create wealth. The government redistributes wealth.

and

Government doesn’t produce wealth. It redistributes it.

actually have some sort of implicit “usually” buried in them? That’s a pretty sorry evasion of the actual question.

@lilady

Every one of your comments reminds me of the following Winston Churchill quote.

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”

It terrifies me that you vote, but it makes me giggle that you think your emotional gibberish is “rational.” Rationalpedia is about rational as naturalpedia is scientific.

“If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?” – Frédéric Bastiat

I love argument by quotation!

All property, indeed, except the savage’s temporary cabin, his bow, his matchcoat and other little Acquisitions absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the creature of public Convention. Hence, the public has the rights of regulating Descents, and all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the quantity and uses of it. All the property that is necessary to a man is his natural Right, which none may justly deprive him of, but all Property superfluous to such Purposes is the property of the Public who, by their Laws have created it and who may, by other Laws dispose of it.
–Benjamin Franklin

What society started libertarian ideals?
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Congratulations, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve read today.

But never mind that, you’re all gung-ho to have a substantive discussion, so let’s have at it.

Which of the following areas should the government be involved in?

– Military
– Intelligence gathering
– Firefighting
– Police
– Health care
– Worker safety
– Minimum wage
– Drug policy
– Freeways
– Energy infrastructure
– Transportation safety standards
– Science
– Pollution cleanup
– Education

Condescension. Ignorance. All the hallmarks. Delysid, please tell me you’re young. Please tell me you’re just trying out all them nifty tactics you just learned in debate club.

@Stu

You are clearly a genius and your intellectual contributions to this thread have been priceless, so I’ll confess my true feelings you to.

MILITARY- governments should have a military because governments are very good at war and killing. The market is far inferior to government at murder. # of nuclear weapons dropped on cities by free-market- 0. # of nuclear weapons dropped on cities by government- 2. GOVERNMENT IS GOD.

Drugs- Drugs should be illegal because only politicians know what is best. The War on Drugs is saving mankind. GOVERNMENT IS GOD.

Intelligence Gathering- government should monitor every aspect of our lives. The NSA is saving America. GOVERNMENT IS GOD.

Science- Only the government does the right science. Everything is quackery or nonexistent. GOVERNMENT IS GOD.

Pollution clean-up- Without government, our entire society would be a landfill. Only government bureaucrats care about the environment. GOVERNMENT IS GOD.

Freeways- Only the government builds roads. The free-market has no use for transportation. GOVERNMENT IS GOD.

Education- Only government can provide education. The market will teach kids bad morals such as greed and opposing government. GOVERNMENT IS GOD.

Transportation safety standards- Only government can keep us safe. The market is dangerous chaos. THE GOVERNMENT IS GOD.

Energy infrastructure- There is no such thing as private energy projects. GOVERNMENT IS GOD.

Health Care- Government can provide us with the best healthcare from cradle to grave. A perfect socialist utopia might even give us immortality. THE GOVERNMENT IS GOD.

Firefighting- the market has no reason to fight fires. The entire world would burn without government. GOVERNMENT IS GOD.

Police- We must obey the police without question. Police uphold the laws of government. GOVERNMENT IS GOD.

Minimum wage- the goverment should not just set minimum wage, but all wages. Governments should stop capitalist exploitation by setting fair wages for everyone. GOVERNMENT IS GOD.

Worker Safety- There would be no workplace safety without government. Workers are disposable slaves for capitalist maters. GOVERNMENT IS GOD.

It terrifies me that Delysid who is somewhere between an undergrad degree and a DDS degree, doesn’t know the difference between Communism, Socialism and Fascism.

It terrifies me that Delysid cannot name any country where Libertarianism or partial Libertarianism has ever been implemented…no less….has ever been successful.

It terrifies me that Delysid needs to hang out on that blog mainly populated with science illiterates, AGW and AIDS denialists, 9-11 Twooothers, Birthers, general conspiracists and other assorted losers, in order to feel good about himself. (BFLPS-Big Fish Little Pond Syndrome)

I’m delighted Delysid is old enough to vote for the Libertarian and Tea Party candidates, so that Democratic candidates will win during the next election cycle.

Which of the following areas should the government be involved in?

Now, Delysid, that’s a very reasonable question, but you answered it with smartass comments instead of substance. One might think that you don’t have substantive answers.

Delsyid sounds a lot like the old Communist Revolutionaries….thinking that their “theories” will lead to a utopian ideal.

Unfortunately, when putting those theories into practice, they proved to be incorrect.

Once again, show us where your theories have been put into practice and been successful?

Because, otherwise you are arguing nothing but hypothetical nonsense.

The StrawMan is strong with this one , since at no time has anyone here said that government is always the answer to all problems.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t – sometimes private sector works best, sometimes not…..only one person here is speaking in absolutes.

I was going to keep out of this but some of this is just painful to read.

Also I can’t help but notice how liberals love to be in majority opinion, as part of the mob.

I never realized I was part of a liberal mob before, and I’m pleasantly surprised that I seem to be in broad agreement with most people commenting here. However the lone voice ranting about group-thinking sheeple who have been brainwashed and unable to think for themselves seems strangely familiar.

That is how government works.

Good grief. A fantasy about how originally everyone lived in an idyllic free market until some evil deceitful person came along and ruined it all with the idea of a government. Based on my studies in social anthropology this is absolute nonsense.
What is closer to the truth is that early hunter gatherer societies such as Delysid describes were (and in some cases still are) more like socialist collectives with everyone contributing as they were able and sharing the proceeds. Sharing is almost universal in small and ‘primitive’ societies. It is the idea of personal property and profit that destroyed this idyllic state, not the idea of government.

Even the simplest hunter gatherer societies have some form of government, in the form of rudimentary rules, and ways of making decisions about where and when to hunt, how to defend against neighboring tribes, who and who not to trade (externally) with etc..

@ Krebiozen:

I think that we’ve already been called by an “intellectual lynch mob” ** ( by Emily-Greg-Peg).

** didn’t they used to open for the Clash?

Orac, I think they should be in none of those things. I’ve answered this already in other comments.

I’m an anarchist but I could settle for a nightwatchman state, similar to what was intended during the creation of the US government.

I would support a system that allowed an emergency volunteer military without a standing army, like Switzerland has.

I don’t support any government involvement in healthcare (not even state licenses). I do support private governing bodies and boards to uphold medical standards. I’d like to see medicine go back to more of an apprenticeship system.

I abhor the War on Drugs more than any other issue. Every drug should be legal. The DEA (and ATF) should be abolished tomorrow.

The FDA should be abolished as well. Dangerous pharmaceuticals were not the reason for the creation of the FDA, but for meat packing inspection due to public outcry from the communist fiction book The Jungle.

The market already builds the roads through private contractors. All the government does is tax and contract the work out. The government does not need to be involved in roads. The market has tremendous incentive to maintain roads for commerce. In private residential areas in Ohio the roads are perfectly maintained, then when you pull onto public roads they are full of potholes. This is government at its finest. The question should be, “without government, who will neglect the roads?”

The private sector is capable of doing fantastic science work, even fundamental science. The statistical T-test, for instance was developed by a statistician working in Guiness Brewery. I don’t think government should be dictating the money flow in research.

Orac check out the public available grant allocations of the NIH. A lot of the projects are embarrassing. Many, if not most of the most important scientific discoveries did not occur in massive publicly funded universities. Marie Curie and many of the other physicists at the turn of the 20th century worked in home laboratories. Other monumental discovieries such as PCR were made in corporate settings.

There should be no minimum wage. This is basic economics.

Believe it or not I do support government involvement in pollution as far as it involves property rights violations. A factory doesn’t have the right to pollute on the land of someone else. I don’t support hairbrained schemes like carbon taxes, but factories should not be able to just dump chemical wastes into rivers.

Think about how much wealthier every American would be if they won’t paying astronomical taxes. Elimination of the income tax alone would give every middle class American tens of thousands of disposable income.

Prosperous societies indulge in the arts and sciences. It’s human nature. There is no doubt in my mind that if the trillion dollar shitshow burden of taxes and regulations of the Federal government was lifted off of the American people the sciences would reach another golden age.

@lilady

Please enlighten me about the differences between fascism, communism, and socialism.

They are all variations of authoritarianism, of central planning. Fascism and socialism are neighbors on the political spectrum.

I don’t vote for the libertarian party usually. I usually vote Republican, sometimes libertarian, sometimes independent. The only time I ever voted for a Democrat was John Kerry when I was 18. I will never make the mistake to vote for a Democrat again.

American Democrats refuse to limit government in anyway or cut any program or agency. This means that Democrats think that the minimum size of governmetn is always larger than it currently is. Where is the limit? They accuse libertarians and Republicans as being extremists, but what is the limit? When has a tax been too low? When has spending been too high? What is the limit to Democrat party totalitarianism? I’ve never seen any hint of it other than the now extinct anti-war movement during the Bush administartion.

Denice,

didn’t they used to open for the Clash?

The Intellectual Lynch Mob would be a great name for a band. Now you have triggered my literalist nostalgic reflex – it was the Slits and the Innocents who opened for The Clash when I saw them for the third time back in ’78 in a small venue on their UK Give ‘Em Enough Rope tour* – I was right at the front, close enough to touch Paul Simenon’s bass while he was playing, which made him snarl.

It got so hot Joe Strummer poured several buckets of cold water over all of us at the front, which was nice except when I got outside in the sub-zero temperatures afterwards my jacket froze solid. Happy days.

* I came across a bootleg of that very same gig not long ago – it sounded terrible. I guess you had to be there.

American Democrats refuse to limit government in anyway or cut any program or agency.

Are you honestly claiming this? I’m pretty sure the majority of democrats would identify ‘cuts to military spending’ as among their top priorities. I certainly would, along with several other government programs.

Khani:

What evidence would convince you of anthropogenic climate change? Or that people should halt climate change regardless of whether they caused it? What are your criteria?

I had high hopes for Delysid initially, based on his acceptance of science-based medicine and of evolutionary biology. His rejection of AGW isn’t mysterious, though. He’s employing the argument from consequences: if AGW is true government intervention seems inevitable, but that’s abhorrent to him, so AGW can’t be true. He’s also relying on the argument from ignorance: that is, a simple lack of knowledge about how science is done by working scientists, and of how the scientific understanding of AGW has developed over nearly 200 years.

While “It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into” (Jonathan Swift), simple ignorance ought to be correctable. I’m going to make one more try, since lurkers here may benefit even if Delysid can’t.

If I’m asked to recommend one book for educated laypeople who want to get up to speed on the topic, my answer is The Discovery of Global Warming by Spencer R. Weart of the American Institute of Physics. It’s published both in paperback and online. Dr. Weart was trained as a physicist but spent his career as an historian of science. The book is a highly readable work of historical scholarship, not partisan polemics. Anyone who reads it understands just why the notion that AGW is a vast hoax is ludicrous.

@ Krebiozen:

Oh no! Don’t tell me let me guess: your real name is Derek, you’re 5’9″, you have dish water blonde hair and you like to…
Oooops!.

Krebiozen – you apparently had way more money than I did in ’78. I was in the cheap seats (sometimes behind the stage) for Queen, Chicago, Jethro Tull, and U.K. if I recall correctly.

Now, Delysid, that’s a very reasonable question, but you answered it with smartass comments instead of substance. One might think that you don’t have substantive answers.

That and the lack of solution for my case tell me we should just ignore Delysid. If all I get for answer is to keep questioning the government, then it’s the worst of the outcome. At least with my party, we carry actions to benefit the world around us.

Alain

I don’t know the answer. Why don’t you explain it to me, genius?

You were asked (multiple times) for an example of a working libertarian society. Since you can provide none, what other evidence do you have that such a society would be feasible?

Saying “System A doesn’t work” isn’t enough. You’ve got to prove that System B does.

And that’s what I’m trying to get out of this conversation, Shay. I’ve asked twice about historical attempts at establishing a libertarian society, just to get proof (or not) of concept. Just to see if such a society was feasible. What I got was an example of the closest thing to a utopian society. Two entirely different things.

I wish someone would answer my original question re: historical attempts at establishing a libertarian government and their results. That would be nice, and I would thank whoever did it in advance.

(Forgive me if I sound a little huffy.)

Marie Curie and many of the other physicists at the turn of the 20th century worked in home laboratories.

Nice pratfall.

Denice,
Fear not, I’m not Derek, and I don’t have dish water blonde hair. You got the height right though, spookily.

M.O’B.,
I worked weekends as a petrol pump attendant – ‘pumped gas’ – so I had a little money, but I don’t remember it being an expensive gig. It was at the now non-existant Wirrina Stadium in Peterborough (that’s a sad photo), November 30th 1978, apparently the “Sort It Out Tour” not the “Give ‘Em Enough Rope” tour as I recalled. It was a standing gig in a smalll sports hall, with no seats as I recall, just a stage about 4 feet high at one end, so I was literally inches away from the bands.

My usual venue was the Corn Exchange at Cambridge, a roller skating rink, also with a similar stage. I always got there early and got a spot at the front, and often had a large bruise across my midriff the next day from getting crushed against the stage by the pogoing mob.

I saw lots of punk bands there, The Damned many times, The Undertones, The Ruts, to name a few. Even Gary Numan when he was with Tubeway Army and called himself Valerian, and was nearly booed off stage. Iron Maiden briefly once too, walked in at the end of the gig when the door bouncers had disappeared…

I still much prefer small venues. The other two times I saw The Clash were at Rock Against Racism gigs in London, one in Victoria Park the other at another park, and at both they were more or less distant specks with thousands of people in between me and them. At the first I could barely hear them due to another punk band playing on the back of a truck nearby. I’ve only been to one big stadium gig – I had to sit down! Never again.

I don’t support any government involvement in healthcare (not even state licenses). I do support private governing bodies and boards to uphold medical standards.

Who would pay for those bodies and boards? Who would make sure they were impartial? Would you trust the Astra-Zeneca Medical Board? Would you pay out-of-pocket for such a board? How much research would you be willing to do on your specialist, seeing as he or she could be certified by 10 out of 2000 medical boards? How would you prevent quacks from killing a few dozen people, picking up stakes and moving on (probably founding a new medical board along the way)? How many deaths are acceptable?

I’d like to see medicine go back to more of an apprenticeship system.

You mean like internships? What the hell?

Also, who would pay for healthcare for the poor and the elderly? How would someone with a pre-existing condition ever get healthcare? How do you prevent the poor, the indigent, the elderly and anyone who has ever been seriously ill before dying like goddamned dogs? Either you have not thought this through or you are a monster.

I abhor the War on Drugs more than any other issue. Every drug should be legal. The DEA (and ATF) should be abolished tomorrow.

I agree to an extent, but you’d better get a large cattle prod and a shovel to move the dead and dying out of your way on the sidewalk then, since you’ve already made sure that there are no health care and detox facilities for addicts whatsoever.

The FDA should be abolished as well. Dangerous pharmaceuticals were not the reason for the creation of the FDA, but for meat packing inspection due to public outcry from the communist fiction book The Jungle.

Wait, that’s a reason? “It wasn’t originally created to prevent people dying like dogs from the lowest-bidder nostrum, so screw it, get rid of it?”

How could I possibly be sure the medication I take is what the label says? And if your answer is “if you die from it, your relatives could sue, so the market will correct that” (yes, I’ve heard that one from libertarians before)… first of all, thank you for not caring that I’m dead, but also, since the government isn’t involved at all, how would you prevent GSK from killing a few thousand people, closing up shop when the lawsuits begin and coming back as GSK 2?

The market already builds the roads through private contractors.

CalTrans is a private contractor? How odd.

All the government does is tax and contract the work out.

I’m sure some day you’ll point out the problem with that.

The government does not need to be involved in roads. The market has tremendous incentive to maintain roads for commerce.

Yes, that’s why the highway system was and is funded by private industry. Oh no, it was not and is not. Why isn’t private industry repairing the hundreds of bridges across the nation that are about to crumble?

In private residential areas in Ohio the roads are perfectly maintained,

Right. All private residential areas, right? I’m sure the roads in trailer parks are of the exact same quality as those going to 5 acre estate lots. And if Ohio is anything like California, the project developer slaps in a nice road, builds houses and runs. Come back 10 years later and the road isn’t so shiny anymore.

then when you pull onto public roads they are full of potholes. This is government at its finest.

That must be why private industry is stepping in and fixing the potholes. Oh no, they’re not. Why do you think that is?

I don’t think government should be dictating the money flow in research.

Erp? From the way you’ve been talking, the government should not be collecting any taxes, so there wouldn’t be any money flow to direct. Right? Problem solved, right?

Many, if not most of the most important scientific discoveries did not occur in massive publicly funded universities.

What a lovely and idiotic assertion. Allow me to counterbalance your single statistical innovation with space travel, atomic power, the human genome project, computers and the Internet.

Other monumental discovieries such as PCR were made in corporate settings.

No, not really.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_polymerase_chain_reaction

There should be no minimum wage. This is basic economics.

Forget it — you’re a monster.

Just to make sure here:
– How many jobs currently pay minimum wage?
– How much did those jobs pay before the last minimum wage hike?
– How much would these jobs pay without a minimum wage?
– How much does a single individual have to make per hour to be able to afford rent, food and medical insurance? (I’m not even going to talk about what the latter would cost in your no-government-involvement-at-all world).

Believe it or not I do support government involvement in pollution as far as it involves property rights violations. A factory doesn’t have the right to pollute on the land of someone else.

So if I, as a corporation, own the land I am allowed to turn it into a complete cesspool, abandon it and move on?

I don’t support hairbrained schemes like carbon taxes

Please elaborate why those schemes are harebrained, and provide alternatives to combat emissions. Or are you saying you love acid rain?

but factories should not be able to just dump chemical wastes into rivers.

Unless they own the river, right? That’s what you just said.

Think about how much wealthier every American would be if they won’t paying astronomical taxes.

Just calling US taxes “astronomical” is hilariously misinformed. Not that I don’t agree to a certain extent; we get preciously little value for money nowadays. Of course, that’s easy enough to fix — cut the tax loopholes for the ludicrously rich and corporations. When the Exxons of the world make profits on the scale of medium-sized countries’ GDP and GET money from the government, but the IRS hires new agents to make sure people making $20,000 a year don’t shirk — something’s out of whack.

Somehow I doubt that’s what you meant, though.

Elimination of the income tax alone would give every middle class American tens of thousands of disposable income.

Which would immediately be disposed. Between my police subscription, my fire subscription, my road subscription, my health insurance, my school costs and other protection rackets, I’d probably be worse off.

There is no doubt in my mind that if the trillion dollar shitshow burden of taxes and regulations of the Federal government was lifted off of the American people the sciences would reach another golden age.

Also, there will be free ponies. Von Mises said so. You are spectacularly naive. Again, you are young and very, very privileged. You do realize that in a nice libertarian society you most likely would not be where you are right now, right?

historical attempts at establishing a libertarian government and their results.

Let’s start with the US, say 1870-1910.

Those were the days!

Actually though, I had so many bizarre experiences related to concerts/ shows in various locales… your bruises remind me of an outdoor show in a sports field ( Irish rugby by day- punk by night), after an hour it started to rain and everyone rushed to get out and up to street level ( the field was 5 or 6 feet lower and walled in)- my friend and I were pushed against the wall and crushed against it by the crowd: quick thinking and reasonable agility allowed me to pull myself up by the guard rail post and help her do the same. We could have been really hurt. I suppose others were.

Usually though, the most excitement at these events involved girls fainting, vomiting or bleeding profusely in the ladies’ room.

(Mod, aside): thank you for dequeueing that so quickly, Orac. Sympathy for the loghorraeic? 🙂

I’m having a field day!!! Actually, you simply don’t know how much I’m wagging my tail 😀 and salivating!

Denice! back some time ago, you recommended that I work some year and study the following year on and off (maybe not on these terms). Well, I have a dilemma the size of a 747, mainly because Specialisterne is coming to Montreal and they want to interview me. Now, for the job, the only requirement is to have a diagnostic of autism. There are no other requirements (which is why I told the oldest brother to brush up his resume; matter of fact, I’ll do it for him).

As for employment, they want to hire a millions autists in the world with 100 000 just in USA (don’t know the numbers for canucksland but it should be high).

nearly forgot the dilemma; I applied for a computer programming course at a local trade college which is one year in length but pretty intensive (4 to 5 days per week for most of the year) which I’d like to finish and as for the interview, I’ll do it at the latest in december which is really soon and I couldn’t ask more for the job of my dreams (and it really is to my dreams)….

Alain

Stu @ #430:

“Let’s start with the US, say 1870-1910.”

Yeah, but the Gilded Age (I assume that’s what you’re talking about) was a highly successful time for the US. How could it possibly be “libertarian”?

Are you saying libertarian governments can be successful?

check out the public available grant allocations of the NIH. A lot of the projects are embarrassing.

Thank goodness you’re here to decide for us! Because remember, your opinion is the only one that matters. If only there was a system through which experts of differing opinions could all get in a room together and vote on which opinion is the best. Wouldn’t that be something?

In your magical golden age of art and science, what force keeps scientific discovery open and accessible to the public? You only need to look at the case of Myriad to see what happens when corporate interests get involved with science.

Hey, the Dark Ages could be considered highly successful.

As long as you were the one with all the castles and the men-at-arms.

Lucario: “Are you saying libertarian governments can be successful?”

Until the folks who are providing the bulk of the labor rose up and say that they would not be abused anymore! The tenant farmer no longer needs to give the bulk of his crop to a absent landowner. That children need to be in school learning how to read, write and basic math instead of tending looms or going into mines. Or dealing with the company store.

Delysid seems to have really slept through his American history classes. That is funny since it was required to pass this class when I was in high school over thirty years ago, And for my kids to graduate just about a year ago. How did he manage to skip that requirement?

Delysid: I’m just going to repost this, for a third time, because many people here are arguing with you, so you may well have missed my questions above.

What evidence would convince you of anthropogenic climate change? Or that people should halt climate change regardless of whether they caused it? What are your criteria?

I feel like this is a pretty reasonable request, as Orac has clearly stated his criteria for changing his mind on vaccines, for example. It’s an honest question.

#420 I’m still willing to engage in the argument if there’s reason to believe anything would change his mind. If there is not, it’s time to agree to disagree.

I could ask the same thing about libertarian principles, but I’m less interested in that argument, as I have come to believe nothing would change his mind. (I am willing to be shown I am wrong about this, however, Delysid, so if you would prefer, feel free to answer if you like: What would convince you libertarianism is not always optimal?)

I’d like to see medicine go back to more of an apprenticeship system.

You mean like internships? What the hell?

I presume he wants to turn back time to before the U.S. had medical schools. You know, “more of” like this.

Oh, the paternal system, where doctors pretty much decided which students would advance based on who they were related to and whether it would bring the doctors social and monetary advancement?

Are people freaking kidding me?

Has no one here actually been to medical school? Apparently medical education is no longer monetary based and the hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a medical education is in my imagination. “Doctors would decide who advances.” Good thing the system is set up so that everyone can be a doctor and there is not an admissions system! Good thing there are no courses to pass and that student doctors are not at the mercy of established doctors!

What is going on?

People are mocking me for skipping history class, but there is flagrant revisionist history taking place. Again people are in the thought loop of “before the glorious government took control everything was chaos!”

It’s just fear mongering. I have demolished all of your blatant fallacies, but all my arguments are ignored and immediately rejected because people are stuck in the delusional circular argument that government is the alpha and the omega.

@AdamG

You are missing the point so blatantly that I don’t know if you will ever understand. Read this comment very clearly.

The entire point of my libertarian worldview is that I am not deciding for you. I am not in a position of government, I am not taxing your income and then using the money I took from you by force to decide on what science projects that money is being spent on.

This is why the current system is so offensive. If I was a science bureaucrat and I used your tax money to study shrimp on treadmills, would you be happy? If I took your money by force and then used that money to study penis size of homosexuals versus heterosexuals (actual study), would you be happy?

Wouldn’t you prefer that money is spent on something that you think is important?

If you do not understand the difference between central planning by force and voluntaryism in the market, I don’t know how else to say it. I just feel sad and frustrated by the ignorance I see around me.

Commenting on this blog has been very disheartening. The pseudointellectualism and arrogance on display here is depressing.

Voluntaryism versus authoritarianism is not hard to understand. Those who believe in pseudoscience in the libertarianism movement might frustrate me, but their ability to reason through political issues is so superior to the savage pro-authoritarianism socialists around here that I don’t know whether to laugh or sigh.

The worst part about all of this is that those who worship the government are the most likely to participate in government. Progressive socialists are like the dumb kid in class who is the first one to raise their hand to answer every question and who is the most eager to become class president to make decisions for everyone else.

I have demolished all of your blatant fallacies

No you haven’t! All I have seen is a lot of hot air about how bad government is, some laughable fantasies plucked from thin air, and not a single argument to support any ideas about libertarianism would work in the real world, just a blind faith in the free market.

You dismiss historical examples as conjecture, erroneously accuse people of logical fallacies when you are spouting them left right and center yourself, and when they are pointed out you defend them by claiming, “a fallacy isn’t necessarily wrong”.

You have repeatedly attempted to refute what people have argued, not through anything resembling rational argument but by accusing them of being brain-washed or fanatically and dogmatically worshiping the State, being progressives and liars, and various other ad hominems. You appear to have nothing but a host of other cheap, transparent debating tricks. You have put forward no clear argument, and no evidence at all to support anything you have asserted.

You have also blatantly ignored repeated questions about how your hypothetical society would work. Now you claim victory? Pathetic. This is almost as bad as the behavior of some of the most deranged trolls we have had here.

It’s not a hypothetical society. It’s the exact society we have now without the vast majority of government.

This quote cannot be repeated often enough.

“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.” Bastiat

Voluntaryism versus authoritarianism is not hard to understand.

Of course it isn’t. I don’t think many of us would disagree that a voluntaryist system would be wonderful. In an ideal world all forms of human association should be voluntary, and no one would have to be coerced to do anything, because everyone would accept personal freedom and responsibility and sign up to a social contract.

What you appear to be incapable of understanding is that many of us simply don’t believe this would work in practice. This is why we think you are extremely naive, since it is blindingly obvious to most of us that many people do not accept personal freedom and responsibility, or if they claim to, they do not behave as if they do in practice.

We have asked you for any examples, historical or current, where a libertarian system has worked in any large organization, such as a country. You apparently cannot offer a single example.

@Krebiozen

How appropriate that you speak in terms of “we” and not “I.”

This is how engrained the collectivism is. This is exactly what I’m talking about when I commented about the mob behavior.

Chris, @ #438:

“Until the folks who are providing the bulk of the labor rose up and say that they would not be abused anymore! The tenant farmer no longer needs to give the bulk of his crop to a absent landowner. That children need to be in school learning how to read, write and basic math instead of tending looms or going into mines. Or dealing with the company store.”

Funny, that’s not how I remember the Gilded Age ending. I thought it ended in a more peaceful manner – with a more gradual changing of the guard.

Then again, I mostly paid attention to the more dramatic moments of American History (which is a lot, let me tell you!) and glossed over the not-so-dramatic parts.

Delsyid definitely sounds like an old school Communist – arguing that only if their model was followed, that utopia would prevail….didn’t exactly work out that way, did it?

You quote this as of immense importance:

As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.

Yet over and over people have asked you how X (whether that’s defense, policing, education, healthcare, road-building or whatever) would be provided if not by government, and your only response has been either to ignore the question, or to mock the strawman that anyone here is asserting that government is the only way to do anything, or that we are incapable of even considering the possibility.

What we want is some idea of what your libertarian utopia would look like in regard to providing a variety of Xs, and some evidence to support the claim that this would work better than government doing this through taxation.

How do you deal with those too ill to work, to poor to afford health care, who fail to save money for old age, who get addicted to the freely available addictive drugs in your utopia, who steal from others, who teach their children dangerous nonsense, who plot to kill others, who invade your country with an army, who refuse to pay for a road but now try to use it etc. etc.?

If you don’t have ready answers to these questions, perhaps you haven’t thought this through very well, and perhaps your libertarianism friends aren’t quite as superior in reasoning as you claim they are. This is strongly suggested by the pseudoscientific nonsense they come out with in regard to vaccines. Are such unbalanced reasoning abilities (in both the libertarians and in commenters here) really very likely, or could you have inadvertently become a True Believer of nonsense?

@Lucario

Since father governmentsaved us from the robber barons of the gilded age and formed a massive Nanny state more people are in poverty than ever before. The burden of proof is on the government, ywt the collective on RI is demanding to know how a free society would work. Free society is the default.

This is how engrained the collectivism is. This is exactly what I’m talking about when I commented about the mob behavior.

A delusional psychotic friend of mine talked in similar terms about how he was right (he believed his father had been replaced by the CIA, and that he had discovered a new mathematical theorem) and how the rest of us had all been fooled.

Are ad hominems about mob behavior all you’ve got?

Well, more people may be in poverty now than in the Gilded Age, but that’s because we have a greater population than we did in the Gilded Age.

“Free society” may be the default, but according to Hobbes, such free societies tend to be “nasty, brutish, and short.” A nation needs a certain amount of government in order to function. It’s a delicate balance – too little and you invite the excesses that typify the Gilded Age, too much and you have authoritarianism. When you’re a government official at any level, you really have to walk on eggshells.

Child mortality was also sky-high, the poor we’re left in the streets to die, famine was still common in some industrialized nations, etc.

Again Delsyid show us a practical, real successful application of your philosophy, because I’m not going to just take your word for it that it would work.

Since father governmentsaved us from the robber barons of the gilded age and formed a massive Nanny state more people are in poverty than ever before.

Astonishing. I don’t think I have ever seen someone blatantly reinvent history to support their argument the way Delysid does. How can anyone argue that peasants in feudal Europe were better off than even long-term unemployed people in a modern state? Or that the Gilded Age, when entire families worked 12 hours a day for a wage below the poverty line, and when child labor and slavery were commonplace, was better than today? I’m gobsmacked.

To all, I would recommend reading “Jennifer Government” as a better example of where Delsyd’s thinking takes us in the real world.

@krebiozen

Not all libertarians are the same. Only a fringe minority of libertarians are antivaxxers. Most antivaxxers are left-wing nutjobs (who no-doubt vote Democrat.) By bringing up the irrationality of antivaxxers all you are doing is discrediting the people who share your ideology.

Again, for the 5th or so time, by attacking a “libertarian utopia” all you are doing is using the nirvana fallacy. I never once hinted that free-market is perfect.

Some problems are eternal to mankind. A free society is the best way to deal with those problems; it’s not a perfect cure.

So what is your excuse of government? The burden of proof is on you. Has the government fixed poverty? Has the government fixed unemployment?

Also child labor is not necessarily a bad thing. Farm children all grow up as child laborers. This is why schools are not in session in the summer.

My Dad delivered newspapers as a paid child laborer at 12 years old. My Mom worked on the family farm her entire childhood and as secretary for a factory at 15. I worked as a tennis pro at 16, the earliest feasible age in which I could drive myself to work.

@ Alain:

I believe I advised you to try to accumulate courses and skills which would allow you to be employed along the way and that weren’t dependent ONLY upon getting the degree: you probably are already doing that to a great extent.

I would talk to the Specialisterne reps and tell them about your prior application to the trade school. Don’t think that wanting to accept one opportunity necessitates rejecting the other. I’m sure the agency/ company understands your situation and would value you getting more computer studies. I doubt that they’re going to fold up their tents and leave town within a year- they have a long range plan, n’est-ce pas?. Just be honest with the interviewer/ advisor. There might be a way for you to be involved with them in the future or on a part time/ rotating basis.

I think that showing them how hard you’re trying to study on your own initiative speaks well for your self-reliance and sincere interest in education. You are also someone who doesn’t need money to live and doesn’t really have to work but who *wants* to work- that also speaks volumes.

* Bon chance*

@Delysid: I notice you’re still whining about strawmen of your own invention. Care to address #429?

@Lawrence

I’ve been trying to decide who the most anti-intellectual commenter on the blog is, and I think you win. “Hey read this fictional novel to understand libertarianism.” You are like the anti-thesis to Ayn Rand. Hey Lawrence, if you want to understand a free society, read Atlast Shrugged! LMFAO

You know how I know the government fails? REAL LIFE. The evidence of the failure of government is literally everywhere.

For example, right now I’m sitting here trying to nativigate the mountains of paperwork I have to do just to treat a Medicaid patient. HIPAA policies arbitarily change every week it seems like. I calculated it out and I realized that I’m paying almost 300 dollars a day on 8% interest (thanks government) just to be in dental school to spend most of my time filling out paperwork.

In other comments there seems to be a lot of confusion regarding medical education. Anyone who thinks that the American medical education system is anything other than a disasterous clusterfuck either has not been through it or is delusional.

If I could drop out of school and work for private dentist as an apprentice for the remaining 18 months of dental school and get my degree, as a message to the world that I am competent, I would do it today.

Also thanks for the sensationalism that you are bringing to the conversation. Someone in another comment even called me a “monster.” How high into imagination lalaland does one have to float to consider anyone who opposes government a monster?

@Stu – he’s not interested in a discussion, he’s merely here to set fire to the strawmen of his own invention.

Not all libertarians are the same. Only a fringe minority of libertarians are antivaxxers.

I’ll take your word for that, though that has not been my experience. The whole reason Orac mentioned you in his post was that it is so unusual to see a nut job saying something sensible, to put it bluntly.

Most antivaxxers are left-wing nutjobs (who no-doubt vote Democrat.)

Most of the serious antivaxxers I have come across seem to be right wing, often libertarians, who distrust governments on principle and believe there is some sort of conspiracy to poison everyone to bring about a New World Order with a reduced population.

I beolieve there are some left wing antivaxxers who tend to be dippy hippy New Age types who believe in the power of positive thought and juicing, but I haven’t come across many of them.

By bringing up the irrationality of antivaxxers all you are doing is discrediting the people who share your ideology.

Interesting – what do you think my ideology is? I don’t know any left wing antivaxxers, I have never met any, so I’m having a hard time seeing how I’m discrediting anyone but idiots by labeling them as such.

Again, for the 5th or so time, by attacking a “libertarian utopia” all you are doing is using the nirvana fallacy. I never once hinted that free-market is perfect.

Yet another straw man. No one is attacking your utopia, we simply would like some idea of how the damned thing is supposed to work in practice!

Some problems are eternal to mankind. A free society is the best way to deal with those problems; it’s not a perfect cure.

Again, where is your evidence to support this assertion? Why do you believe that a “free society” (whatever that looks like) is the best way to deal with those problems apart from blind assertions that look to me exactly like religious dogma. “Government is bad because it’s bad, any idiot can see that, and if you disagree with me you are all brain washed progressive left-wingers, because i say so!” That seems to sum up your position.

So what is your excuse of government? The burden of proof is on you. Has the government fixed poverty? Has the government fixed unemployment?

Compared to what? People in the developed world are better off than anyone has ever been throughout human history. Life expectancy is longer, infant mortality is lower, people’s likelihood of dying from violent crime or being sent to war is lower. Poverty as people understand it in other parts of the world does not occur; even in America I don’t believe people starve to death.

Personally I’m not convinced that unemployment is a bad thing. I would like to see more and more work done using technology and people to have more and more leisure time. That would require finding ways to redistribute wealth more equally, probably using taxation.

There are a lot of things that your and my governments do that I don’t much like. I don’t see the solution is to get rid of them completely, I think we can change our governments so that they truly work for us as they are supposed to.

Also child labor is not necessarily a bad thing. Farm children all grow up as child laborers. This is why schools are not in session in the summer.

I’m talking full-time child labor with no education and no childhood.

My Dad delivered newspapers as a paid child laborer at 12 years old.

Probably most of us worked in our spare time as children. I certainly did, all through my education I worked weekends and vacations. That is not what I’m talking about here.

My Mom worked on the family farm her entire childhood and as secretary for a factory at 15. I worked as a tennis pro at 16, the earliest feasible age in which I could drive myself to work.

You have not the faintest clue what childhood used to be like for most children until governments made rules about it, do you? Telling me that child labor is a good thing beause your dad delivered newspapers? Words fail me.

@Stu I’m not addressing all of #429 because most of it is hysterical sensationalism. PEOPLE WOULD BE DYING IN THE STREETS. You can’t reason with a lunatic, but I’ll address a few for the lurkers.

“Who would pay for those bodies and boards?”

Who pays for them now Stu? Do you think the government is free? The people who use a good or a service pay for that good or service.

How did the indigant insane and elderly get medical treatment before Federal programs came into existance? Do you think they just died in the streets? I’m assuming your alarmism was just hyperbolic muckraking and you don’t really believe that corpses were piled on the streets, but then again I might be giving you way too much credit.

Did you know that historically doctors do a lot chairty work? Did you know historically that people are quite generous and donate to charity? Did you know that the government drives up the costs of medicine, making prices seem way more outrageous than they would be in the market?

People with pre-existing conditions should pay for their own health care.

I support a single-payer system in which one individual person pays for his individual health care. If I take care of myself throughout my life, why should I pay for the healthcare of a lifelong smoker? Or an obese person with non-insulin dependent diabetes? They should pay for their own health care.

Also, health treatment is not the same thing as health insurance. This is a myth and a fallacy that just encourages the shitty system.

That brings us nicely to Orac’s post today, which looks at the political spectrum of nut jobbery in the form of AGW denialism and conspiracy theories of various degrees of implausibility.

@Krebiozen

You keep deliberately missing my point. I never used the phrase “libertarian utopia.” You are the one that keeps calling it that. How come you never address the concept of a government utopia? How much taxation and redistribution of wealth does it take to make a government utopia?

What was life like before then? Please tell me. Was it like inner-city Akron schools where kids are dropping out of middle school? I was unaware that our glorious government solved all of those problems you talk about.

It sounds to me as if you are just a privildged elitist who speaks of poverty as heresay. Those who support government love to taut themselves as heroes of the poor, but where is the evidence that government intervention works?

“One of the great mistakes is to judge police and programs by their intentions rather than theiri results.” Milton Friedman

@Delsyid – you keep claiming that what we have now is bad & there should be an alternative, yet you show no evidence that your “alternative” will be better than current…..so answer the question, please point to where your philosophy has been attempted & succeeded in the real world?

Because I can point out exactly why Communism is bad & doesn’t work – because we have real world examples of where it was attempted & has universally resulted in worse outcomes (and certainly not the outcomes that the people preaching for it claimed would occur).

So, show us your evidence.

Some problems are eternal to mankind. A free society is the best way to deal with those problems; it’s not a perfect cure.

Which problems are these, exactly, and what evidence demonstrates a libertarian society would deal with them better than does our current system?

Be specific.

@Lawrence

The burden of proof is on you. You have to defend how government works. Tell me how minimum wage works better than no minimum wage. How has the Fair Labor Standards Act helped society?

How has Medicare and Medicaid helped?

Those programs have no been around forever. I don’t have to defend the market as if it is some theoretical fantasy. The market is the default. You have to defend government.

Go ahead. Defend every program that you think is necessary. I’ll be here waiting, during my mountain of paperwork.

@Denice,

I did tell them about my plans and the best advices she give me is to continue on my plan while they’re waiting for the implementation plan at SAP to begin hiring autists.

Alain

@JGC

Please help Lawrence defend each and every government program and agency that you think is necessary. Please prove actual evidence of them working and not just their feel-good intentions and positive names.

The burden of proof is on government. Go ahead. Take your time. The bureacuracy of governmetn is enormous, so I imagine defending all of them will take quite a bit of time.

To quote the study Orac discusses in today’s post:

The new study also has some fascinating implications for the longstanding battle over who’s worse when it comes to distorting science: The left, or the right. Addressing this issue was a key motivation behind the research, and the basic upshot is that left-wing science denial was nowhere to be found—at least not in the sense that left-wingers reject established science more frequently than right-wingers on issues like GMOs or vaccines. “I chose GM foods and vaccinations based on the intuition in the media that this is a left wing thing,” Lewandowsky explains. “And as it turns out, I didn’t find a lot of evidence for that.”

So no, it does not intend to actually defend any of its stances. How droll and typical. I think we’re done here.

You keep deliberately missing my point. I never used the phrase “libertarian utopia.” You are the one that keeps calling it that.

It’s a figure of speech based on your insistence that libertarianism is the best way of running things. I’m not insisting on perfection, I just want a explanation of how it might work in practice. What is the point I have missed again?

How come you never address the concept of a government utopia? How much taxation and redistribution of wealth does it take to make a government utopia?

I have never suggested that government leads to utopia and I have never insisted that you demonstrate that libertarianism is perfect either. You’re the one who characterizes my position as “GOVERNMENT IS GOD”, not me.

What was life like before then? Please tell me. Was it like inner-city Akron schools where kids are dropping out of middle school? I was unaware that our glorious government solved all of those problems you talk about.

Before what? Government? You would have to go back to pre-agricultural societies, hunter gatherers, which sound quite pleasant to me, spending maybe an hour a day gathering food., the rest telling stories, singing or having fun. Life expectancy isn’t great but they don’t have any of those nasty ideas about private property and markets.

Or do you mean before ” father government saved us from the robber barons of the gilded age and formed a massive Nanny state”? You could, you know, pick up a history book. America’s ‘Gilded Age’ was a term coined as a sarcastic dig at those who thought it was wonderful when in fact the truth was very different. The conditions at the turn of the 20th century were appalling by some accounts:

Indeed, at the turn of the 20th century, U.S. child mortality rates were high, millions of children were employed, school attendance was low, poverty was widespread, and countless children dependent on the community languished in almshouses and orphanages. Such institutions, created in part to house Civil War orphans, were already in decline by 1900, as reformers sought to place orphans—as well as many children in poor families—in either child-specific institutions or middle-class homes as foster children. By 1910, more than 1,150 institutions, with varying conditions, held 150,000 children. The health of young children was abysmal by modern standards, as about 1 in 4 children in 1900 died by age 5. Likewise, two million children between the ages of 10 and 15 worked in factories, on farms, and on urban streets.”

Does that really sound better than some kids dropping out of middle school? How would a libertarian society have dealt with that situation? Would it have taken the kids out of the orphanages and put them up chimneys? That’s the free market I suppose.

It sounds to me as if you are just a privildged elitist who speaks of poverty as heresay.

Now I’m a privileged elitist! Is there no end to the insulting BS you are prepared to throw at me? I have seen plenty of poverty, in Egypt where I did anthropological fieldwork, and spent time in shanty towns built from corrugated iron, and in the City of the Dead where people live in tombs. I couldn’t do much to help there as a student myself, apart from give a little money, and I bought a live chicken for a hungry family. I have seen poverty in India where I spent several weeks traveling in Uttar Pradesh and Rajastan, and saw people dying, and dead in the streets, living in huge squalid villages made of cardboard and chicken wire.

I also have experienced years of unemployment due to ill health myself, forced to live on state benefits, after I had spent all my savings supporting myself and my family. That wasn’t much fun, having to beg for money, being threatened with homelessness, unable to pay the rent, skipping meals to save money, something I never imagined I would ever have to do. However, that was a walk in the park compared to some of the things I have seen in the developing world.

What is your experience of poverty? Did one of your family have their pocket money stopped for a couple of weeks?

Those who support government love to taut themselves as heroes of the poor, but where is the evidence that government intervention works?

You write as someone living in a country that has a primitive welfare state that prevents anyone from dying of hunger, and you ask such a dumb question? How would libertarianism tackle poverty? Everything you have written here suggests to me that you would expect the poor to sort out their own problems, like those 300 million Bangladeshi flooded-out refugees you expect will help themselves.

“One of the great mistakes is to judge police and programs by their intentions rather than theiri results.” Milton Friedman

You are full of intentions, show me some results, some successes of libertarianism. It has been around for at least a century, surely someone somewhere has at the very least set up an experimental community run on those principles. How does it work in practice?

@Delysid:

Tell me how minimum wage works better than no minimum wage. How has the Fair Labor Standards Act helped society?

Labourers in the US no longer have to face a “race to the bottom” situation where they get squeezed. They are no longer required to work 12 hour days for below starvation wages.
How has Medicare and Medicaid helped?
People aren’t dying because they can’t afford medical care. People aren’t going bankrupt because they needed a procedure that cost literally tens of thousands of dollars, sometimes even over $100,000.
I’m beginning to hope Delysid is a Poe. I’d like to think that nobody could be that deluded, but I’ve been on RI too long.

Gaah, blockquote fail. Please bring back preview or introduce an ‘Edit’ button.

Libertarianism is just a new word to describe the ancient belief in individual liberty. Every few decades new words have to be ascribed to individual liberty because the definition keeps getting perverted. (Classical) liberalism used to be libertarianism. Then the new liberalism came to mean collectivism, so the word conservative was used to describe classical liberalism. Then collectists perverted the word conservative, so people like Rothbard coined the term libertarian.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism

How would libertarianism tackle poverty?

Well thanks for asking.

The burden of proof is on government.

No, it’s not. The ‘government’ didn’t post to this forum insisting it’s the best possible system: you posted to thsi forum that all governments are bad and should not be involved in anything (including ensruing the public health, maintaining essential infrastructure, regualting food and pharmaceuticals, etc.), while claiming that a completely unregulated free market system would be far more beneficial to society.

Your claim, your responsibility to credibly support it.

And you haven’t even made an attempt to do so. You’ve been asked many times to explain exactly how your libertarian free market society would function in the real world, or to provide examples of such societies that have functioned as well or better than the current democratic republic, and you just keep repeating some version of “All government is bad!””

Why is it, exactly, that you’re unable to respond substantively to direct questions or to admit you have no answers to give?

What I really suspect is that as far as you’re concerned, the problems that governments address far better than free market forces ever have been seen to address (promoting public health, safe working conditions, establishing a mandatory minimum wage, maintaining essential infrastructure, etc.) simply aren’t problems that NEED to be addressed.

So, given that the burden IS yours to show that ffree market forces are better at solving soceity’s problems than any other form of society, explain how they would address the problem of a single parent who is unable to command a sufficient income to provide for herself and her child.

Currently, there are state and federal programs that respond and provide subsidized housing, supplemental nutrition assistance (i.e., foodstamps), that provide health coverage (e.g., Medicaid), job training programs, etc.

What would the free market solution to this problem be? Indentured servitude? Or do you simply not see this a problem society needs to address such that your ‘solution’ takes the form of “Let them starve!”?

@ Krebiozen:

I didn’t realise that you had experienced financial difficulties firsthand as well as observing poverty from your travels and work as I did. I’m sorry to hear that.

Your story enables scoffers to perhaps peer into the mindset of radical socialists like us and comprehend why we would support the idea of a ‘safety net’ :
you’re an intelligent, well-meaning person with an education and many skills that benefit others ( medical labs) who supported a family AND who couldn’t work for a while.
So you got assistance and medical care until you recovered and then went back to work. And paid taxes. And bought goods and services. And took care of yourself and others.

And what would have you done if therehad been no safety network of services?
Ask relatives to help you? Barter for medical treatments by cleaning your doctor’s home? Live in the woods? Let your children beg for food?

I suppose some would differentiate services for the ‘worthy poor’ and those for slackers… how would that work exactly?

@JGC

This is not debatable.

If I decide I don’t want to work, should you be forced to fund my housing and food?

I’m the government. I now have control over your life JBC. Prove to me why I shouldn’t do this. Oh you can’t? Too bad. Now hand over 37% of your income to me.

Hey by the way I love this logic of “indentured servitude” without government.

WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK TAXES ARE?

If 37% of your income is taken away in taxes, that means that 37% of your labor was taken from you. This is literally slavery. Slavery is working and then having the fruits of your labor taken away from you.

Statist logic: “In the free-market people will enslave us and control our lives, therefore let’s create and defend a government that enslaves us and controls are lives.”

Brilliant thinking.

The greatest thing the government does is to let people do absolutely nothing and pretend that hey are helping society.

“It’s amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness.” Penn Jillette

I know a young woman who volunteers with our agency 2 days per month. She has medical issues that would prevent any but the most open-minded and compassionate employer from ever offering her a job.

She has no family. She didn’t ask for her condition; she didn’t deliberately set out to render herself unemployable. She is very happy to be able to give six hours per month back to the community, even if it is only stuffing envelopes and the other very basic, menial tasks that we find for her to do (For one thing, it gives her a bit of the structure that a regular job offers luckier people).

Without the (meager as it is) safety net offered to her in this country, she’d be sitting with a bowl to beg. Or dead. Is that a better solution than the “nanny state?”

I am willing to listen to the idea that a libertarian society might work better than democratic socialism if someone can explain to me how such a society will care for its most vulnerable members.

This is why the current system is so offensive. If I was a science bureaucrat and I used your tax money to study shrimp on treadmills, would you be happy? If I took your money by force and then used that money to study penis size of homosexuals versus heterosexuals (actual study), would you be happy?

Wouldn’t you prefer that money is spent on something that you think is important?

This is what you’re fundamentally too arrogant to understand, Delysid. I’d honestly answer your question NO.

That’s because I recognize that what I think is important doesn’t really matter. I’m not equipped to decide, alone, what grants should be funded and what shouldn’t. I’d rather have my tax money divided amongst the various fields of science by the experts in those fields. Not by dudes named Delysid or Tom Coburn who think they are the sole arbiters of what’s ‘important.’

Look, Delysid. I’ve encountered many of your type before. I went to college at a University that, for historical reasons, has a high concentration of dudes just like you. Several of them were even my close friends. Luckily, of the arrogant libertarians I was friends with, all but one has come around from that phase (the last one, absurdly rich from family money, is irredeemable). As others have mentioned, the catalyst in all 3 cases I’m thinking of was travel. Get out into the world, Delysid. You have lived in a very limited bubble, and therefore your data gathering is incomplete. Is it really scientific to make judgments about human nature when you’ve experienced such a small slice of what humanity actually is?

Are people freaking kidding me?

Has no one here actually been to medical school? …

What is going on?

People are mocking me for skipping history class, but there is flagrant revisionist history taking place.

It’s unclear to me where there has been any “revisionist history” going on regarding medical education. Indeed, it’s barely been touched.

However, since you apparently have it at your fingertips, please explain the roles of Flexner and Osler in shaping modern medical education, with application to your proposed reforms and their relationship to your working principles.

#443 Er… no, we are referring to the actual history of medicine, in which the system of apprenticeships was actually used, and nepotism actually was very common. That’s not revisionism. (Citation: For Fear of Pain: British Surgery 1790-1850)

Admissions systems and organized courses are designed to weed some of that out, and while they are not perfect, they *do* have a student depend on a large group of doctors and faculty rather than only one or two doctors for advancement.

I have asked you my question about climate change three times now, and you don’t answer.

I was actually willing to be convinced, having had a certain amount of skepticism about climate change earlier on (when there was less science about it), but since you won’t set any standard for the argument there doesn’t seem much point.

This is the second time I’ve asked about libertarianism, just in case you missed the first one.

What sort of evidence would convince you that libertarianism does not always offer the optimal solution?

Oh Cripes are your all still arguing with this full of himself, full of it, troll.

The troll is concerned about the present day drop-out school rate in Akron Ohio. Years ago, during the height of the depression, brought about by lack of centralized controls on the economy and by greedy people playing the markets by buying shares of stock with 90 margins…the United States and the world was in the Great Depression.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2156728/Long-lost-Depression-era-photos-capture-everyday-life-destitute-Americans.html

What type of anarchist are you Delysid? How much Income
Tax have you paid in each of the last five years…so that you don’t freeload on all the services provided by those who pay their Income Tax?

@Shay

I know people, too. Do you want to exchange anecdotes?

You offered no proof of anything. You gave an emotional anecdote and said “without the Nanny state she would be dead.” This is not debating. This is not intellectualism. This is fear-mongering.

You claim to “be willing to listen,” but so far all you have done is declare your prejudices and fear-mongered with conjecture about what would happen without the State.

How come the Nanny State has not lifted the person in your story out of poverty? Are we living in a Socialist utopia?

@lilady

I’m an anarcho-capitalist who would setle for a nightwatchman state if I had to choose a state.

Are you talking about the Great Depression that was caused by government? How cute. Who better to fix a massive depression than the entity that caused the depression, right!?

http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/articles/09/GreatMythsOfTheGreatDepression.pdf

“Regarding the Great Depression. You’re right, we did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again.” Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke

Address the points made in #429.

Explain how Shay’s colleague would NOT die like a dog in a libertarian society.

Stop your hand-waving and whining. You answered my questions, I made points about your replies. Address them or admit you’re trolling.

For bonus points, explain how you would be where you are today in a libertarian society.

If I was a science bureaucrat and I used your tax money to study shrimp on treadmills, would you be happy?

Oh, goody, rather than creating your own blunders à la Marie Curie, now you’re regurgitating things that you didn’t bother to examine during consumption. Identify the PI, the amount of the grant utilized, and what was being examined. Although this was NSF funded, it would help if you could relate this to your previously emphasized point that “the NIH isn’t exactly the conveniance of a drive-thru when it comes to grant money.”

Cherry Picking Troll…that’s the second time you made that statement,

Bernancke made that statement on the occasion of Milton Friedman’s 90th birthday. Bernancke was referring to the Federal Reserve during Friedman’s tenure, when the Fed didn’t do enough to avoid the Great Depression.

Did I miss something here? You haven’t replied to my question about the Income Tax you’ve paid during the past five years. Or are you an able-bodied, free-loading parasite, who enjoys the good life because others pay for the services a centeralized government provides.

**This is not debatable that the burden of proof is on government

Nonsense. This is just another entirely unsupported assertion on your part, no different than your previous similiarly unsupported assertions “All governments are bad” and “Libertarian societies would of course perform much better”.

Delysid: You’ve made it clear you don’t think current society works. We get that. Our point is that you keep dodging requests that you explain how a libertarian society would. That’s utterly dishonest.

The current situation has not lifted this young woman out of poverty. I don’t expect it to. It covers her basic needs for food, clothing, shelter and medical care. It isn’t nirvana and neither I nor anyone else here has ever said that it was.

You’re the one throwing out the absolutes and asking for acceptance without supporting documentation.

I am offering you the opportunity to explain how a libertarian society would address the needs of its most vulnerable members. That’s the question I’m asking and you keep avoiding.

Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness.”

Please document a single instance where the government used guns to give money to help poor and suffering people.

@Shay

I think late onset mental retardation should be replaced with “socialist.”

How come not one person has defended government? The closest answer anyone has given is that “in a libertarian society people would be dying in the streets.”

I think late onset mental retardation should be replaced with “socialist.”

Ah, so you’re ableist too!

@lilady

I’ve paid income taxes. I worked for several years before going to dental school. I’ve also paid property taxes, gasoline taxes, sales taxes, ecotaxes, alcohol taxes, tobacco taxes, and a laundry list of other taxes.

Over the course of my dental career I will also pay a million plus in income tax.

So don’t condescend me like I am a freeloader.

I will also be $330,000 in debt to trian in a profession that gives back to society more than any other- medicine.

What have you done to justify your sickening self-righteousness?

@lilady

Oh and the government taxed over 30% of what I earned substite teaching. At the time, despite having a Master of Science, I was pulling up dirty carpets and toilets out of apartments to eat. But then again I refused to take food stamps, unlike millions of others, instead working a minimum wage job for a few months until school started.

I mean they taxed over 30% of the money that was automatically put in a retirement fund (which I didn’t want them to in the first place)

Stupidity shine:

I think late onset mental retardation should be replaced with “socialist.”

I thought about not saying a world and letting such phrase stand in all its glory but then, I felt the need to revisit and puke on all the oldies journals from an epoch which were the work of a popular movement:

Eugenics

Alain

At the time, despite having a Master of Science, I was pulling up dirty carpets and toilets out of apartments to eat.

Wouldn’t your recommended free market solution to this complaint be “Moved elsewhere, where you wouldn’t have had to pull up carpets and dirty toilets to eat”?

Are you talking about the Great Depression that was caused by government? How cute. Who better to fix a massive depression than the entity that caused the depression, right!?

There is no consensus about the causes of the Great Depression, whether it was caused by too much or too little government intervention. Trying to use this as an argument by citing an essay from a free market think tank is just silly. I could equally point at the Great Depression as an example of free market failure, suppoerted bt what I consider very convincing arguments from Keynesians.

Are you aware that most people regard your political position as the lunatic fringe? Libertarian candidates generally get less than 1% of the vote. If you are going to persuade people that you have something of value to offer politically you people need to do a lot better than these spittle-flecked rants, accusing people of lying and having “late onset mental retardation”. I imagine Libertarianism has lost a great deal of respect from those following this thread.

Denice,

I didn’t realise that you had experienced financial difficulties firsthand as well as observing poverty from your travels and work as I did. I’m sorry to hear that.

Thanks, one of my friends once described me as the unluckiest person he ever met, and he had a point. I have kept quiet about it here but I still have health problems and I’m not working full-time, but things are much better than they were a few years ago. RI has been part of my rehabilitation.

Incidentally, I have always said I was happy for my taxes to go towards supporting the sick and the unemployed. I never expected to need such help myself; I spent my savings and dug myself into debt before swallowing my pride enough to ask for help.

Oh and the government taxed over 30% of what I earned substite teaching

Your maths are as awful as your spelling. Your federal taxes don’t hit 30% until you reach well over 100K in income. You didn’t do that ‘subtite’ teaching. Also, the entire point of retirement accounts is that the money is put in *pre-tax*; it is not taxed. How can you expect to like or dislike something when you have no clue how it works?

instead working a minimum wage job for a few months

Lucky for you, the government instituted that minimum wage, of else you’d have been making much less. You might not have felt it was enough, but what do you think ‘the market’ would have really paid you for carpet tearing up abilities?

Listen, why bother with all of these pesky ‘regulations’ that are ‘forcing’ you to goto Dental School to practice dentistry? Why not just move the Chechnya where there aren’t any strong government thugs to take all your money, and start pulling teeth right now? We will do without your ‘million dollars in taxes’ and believe me, you will not be missed.
I imagine Libertarianism has lost a great deal of respect from those following this thread.

Nope. Pretty much what you get anytime someone tries to defend it.

Stu: “Not just a troll, a really, really incompetent and stupid one.”

Yeah. I just now skip his comments, especially after seeing that because the history is not how he thought it was that we are presenting revisionist history.

@Alain

I am not a “eugenicist.” I in no way called for genetic cleansing of the population. I was referring to the quote

Any man who is not a socialist at age 20 has no heart.
Any man who is still a socialist at age 40 has no head.

Also it is a bit ridiculous to accuse me of being a troll on a thread that was about me.

@JGC

I took the job because I needed something for 3 months. It served its purpose. As a capitalist I moved on to other ventures when the contract ended. I only mentioned it because lilady was condescending me like I am some pampered rich kid.

@Krebiozen

Again you are spewing logical fallacies with X percentage agree with me and Y percentage do not. Being in the minority doesn’t make libertarianism wrong. In fact it is the only consistent ethical political ideology.

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” Mark Twain

And I’m sure libertarianism lost a ton of respect because of that comment, as the radical socialists who infested this blog had such high regard for libertarianism before that. /s

Socialism is extremely offensive in practice. Describing socalists as having late-onset mental retardation is nothing compared to the destruction socialism does to society. It is an ideology of force and control and violence. What is more offensive than that?

@Krebiozen
Again you are spewing logical fallacies with X percentage agree with me and Y percentage do not. Being in the minority doesn’t make libertarianism wrong.

Wow, you completely failed to understand Krebiozen’s point at #511.

@lilady

I don’t doubt that readers here have family members with intellectual disabilities. I’m talking to several of them on this blog.

And you caught me. I made that thread mocking conspiracy theorists on the Daily Paul.

@passionless Drone

Welcome to the anti-libertarian circlejerk. I took that job knowing what the pay was. It was a temporary, seasonal job that was unskilled and brainless. They have no reason to pay any less than what people are willing to work for. Your liberal outrage is misplaced.

Perhaps you should direct your anger to the Federal Reserve, the institution that keeps the poor in poverty by constant devaluation of the dollar. It is pretty difficult to save capital when the Fed prints billions of dollars at will, inflating the price of goods and preventing savings.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/2010/11/walter-e-williams/minimum-wage-maximum-folly/

@Krebiozen and AdamG

HAHAHAHAH

I just realized something. “There is no consensus about the cause of the Great Depression.” Weird! Most economists, including many Keynsian economists, including the chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke, are in consensus that the Federal Reserve played a role. Oh the irony of this!

@Krebiozen:

Personally I’m not convinced that unemployment is a bad thing. I would like to see more and more work done using technology and people to have more and more leisure time.

Hey, the IWW was on to the four-hour day a long time ago, if for somewhat different reasons.

@Narad

Let’s just use tax dollars to pay union workers a living wage to dig holes, then pay them more money to fill those holes back up.

Isn’t communist economics fun?

Democrats: The Republicans did it.
Republicans: The Democrats did it.

Libertarians: Never been allowed to do shit but supposedly would ruin the county if they were.

Get it?

I took the job because I needed something for 3 months. It served its purpose.

Then I fail to understand why you’d resent that you had to also pull up carpets and toilets to eat–you accepted the free-market evaluation of the skillset you possesed, the value your employers placed on your labor, and as you indicate in return you received an acceptable amount of recompense (“it served its purpose”).

That said, can we return to the question I asked @480:
What would be the Libertarian or free market solution to the problem of single parents being unable to support themselves and their children?

Libertarians: Never been allowed to do shit but supposedly would ruin the county if they were.

If Libertarians present their philosophy and goals in the ways that you have, are you really surprised that this is the case?That’s what Krebiozen was getting at in #511.

I will also be $330,000 in debt to trian in a profession that gives back to society more than any other- medicine dentistry.

FTFY. How you’re going to be “giv[ing] back to society” remains thoroughly unclear, since you don’t exactly seem like the type to go into underserved populations.

Anyway, how exactly is this not the market at work? UCLA currently comes in at $304,000 by their own estimate (I presume this is the nonresident cost); if you don’t want to go someplace cheaper, such as Texas A&M’s Baylor College, which was $113,957 in the 2010–2011 ADA survey, why are you touting the $330,000? Hell, why not tell everyone what the school is, so that your audience can get an idea of the admission standards of a very top tier school?

@Narad

Let’s just use tax dollars to pay union workers a living wage to dig holes, then pay them more money to fill those holes back up.

Isn’t communist economics fun?

I’m afraid you’ve amassed enough direct questions from me to not really be in a position to be grasping at my comments directed at others. However, even this feeble attempt on your part promptly collapses, as there’s no reason for unions not to exist in your subsophomoric confection.

Funny how he can argue for a “hypothetical” over reality, without providing a single instance where said “hypothetical” was attempted and was proven to be successful.

Seems pretty stupid to me..

@Narad

Dentistry is medicine. Dentists aren’t physcians, but they are doctors.

I’m assuming Narad that you are unaware that the mouth is part of the human body because you have an asshole at both ends of the GI tract.

I said I’m in Ohio. I’m sure you all with some light research one could figure out where I attend dental school.

By the way, I had a 23 (99th percentile) on my DAT and a 31S (85th percentile) on my MCAT, along with a 3.5 GPA in a Master of Science in the Biomedical Sciences. I got into medical school, too, and chose dentistry. I guarantee I have stronger science credentials than most of you here. Go ahead and go down that road.

When did I say there is no reasons for unions to exist? People should have the right to free association. But if a union member applied to work for me, I would just laugh.

It is pretty difficult to save capital when the Fed prints billions of dollars at will

It’s also pretty hard to save capital when you make $1.50 an hour, but let me guess — you don’t give a crap about that, do you.

@Narad

You don’t know me. You know the imaginary strawman you have created. You can use all of the obscure vocabulary you want, it doesn’t change that your worldview is as primitive as it gets.

@JBC

For a 150 years a single working male could support an entire family. What changed?

The Federal Reserve ended the gold standard and gave us a totally fiat currency.

Once again, we are back to you having the burden of proof. Please tell me, how is a single parent suppose to support a family in this fiat currency system the government forced us into?

When did I say there is no reasons for unions to exist? People should have the right to free association. But if a union member applied to work for me, I would just laugh.

You’re a miserable excuse for a human being. I wash my hands and feet of you. If it didn’t hurt me or others I would love for you to open up your practice in a nice libertarian society and have someone open up a competing one next door — someone without any education or certification, or $300,000 of debt, and charging half your prices.

JBC: Indentured servitude?

Well, it worked for the Puritans.

Frankly, my preferred mode of government is monarchy. I wonder if England would take us back. My personal opinion is that we need to cut back on the number of states if we want to have a functioning government.

@Stu

$1.50 an hour used to be an enormous wage. What happened? Why don’t you explain to me WHY $1.50 an hour doesn’t buy shit today?

Do you understand economics? Do you understand cause and effect? Or do you just have a primitive worldview in which you can only look at the present circumstances and give emotional opinions about it?

Delysid, do you understand the concept of the passage of time? Do you think the government has always existed? You aren’t proposing anything new, everything you’ve suggested has been done before. The free market did not prevent poison from being sold as medicine, the free market did not get people livable wages, and the free market was in no small part responsible for the Great Chicago Fire.

“Libertarians are so selfish! They won’t let me decide how their money is spent!”

Back on topic – I typed “anti vaccine people are” into Google & had some great auto-finishing come up……Looks like Google is definitely pro-vaccine.

@Gray Falcon

There is no such thing as a “living wage.” That is a made-up, arbitrary term to incite as much emotion as possible. Progressives think with emotion and not logic and eat those types of phrases up.

You are right, I am not suggesting anything new, but

“Capitalism is relatively new in human history. Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering, and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellow man.” Walter E Williams

Please tell me what incentive someone has to sell poison. Why would a capitalist want to kill his customers? That seems pretty stupid, doesn’t it?

If you are talking about herbal snake oil, then I would love to inform you that the government allows the selling of it. I’m not sure what point you thought you were making.

Also the Chicago Fire is the fault of the free-market? WTF? This passes for an argument? lol

@Delsyid – there have been numerous instances where “cost-benefit” analysis has allowed Corporate misdeeds to proliferate, because it was known that the “punishment” was less than what could be gained by the action.

Again, please point to where your theories have been put into practice and shown to be successful.

Also child labor is not necessarily a bad thing. Farm children all grow up as child laborers. This is why schools are not in session in the summer.

I’m a bit late, but wanted to address this –

One of my favorite web sites is http://www.shorpy.com/ The keepers of the site post high definition scans of old photographs from the Library of Congress, very lightly processed for contrast and tone. One of the taglines used is ‘History in HD’.

If you go there, there is an ‘About Shorpy’ link. on the ‘About’ page are 3 photos of Shorpy Higginbotham. The first picture has the caption –

December 1910. “Shorpy Higginbotham, a ‘greaser’ on the tipple at Bessie Mine, of the Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Co. in Alabama. Said he was 14 years old, but it is doubtful. Carries two heavy pails of grease, and is often in danger of being run over by the coal cars.” Photograph and caption by Lewis Wickes Hine.

That photo has, at the top, a list of tags, and one is ‘Lewis Hine’. Hine took a series of photos for the National Child Labor Commission. Clicking on that link takes you to pages of Hines’ photos (not all of which deal with child labor).

But, just looking at the ‘About Shorpy’ page, I gotta ask…

Delysid, is this seriously something you want to see again? If not, who, if not the government, has the power to stop something like this?

@Narad

You don’t know me. You know the imaginary strawman you have created.

Really? What would that “strawman” be? Or have you failed to figure out what the word means?

What I know of you is your persona established here: one that either unable or unwilling to answer direct questions, plainly contradicts itself and then incredulously denies that it has, and fails to acknowledge when factual blunders are pointed out.

You can use all of the obscure vocabulary you want

What “obscure vocabulary” would that be?

it doesn’t change that your worldview is as primitive as it gets.

Oh, the delicious irony. Tell me what my worldview is, Carnac.

For a 150 years a single working male could support an entire family

When?

And you keep dodging our questions on how a libertarian society will care for the vulnerable.

I guarantee I have stronger science credentials than most of you here. Go ahead and go down that road.

Ah, I knew we’d only get so far before Delysid stated whipping out his…credentials. You do know that it’s impossible to know this for a fact, right? As someone who’s been around this blog for quite a bit longer, I’m fairly certain you’re dead wrong about this.

If you were a TA grading a student paper on climate science, and the best argument the paper could muster was that ‘all attempts at modeling climate are inaccurate because models are complicated,’ how would you grade that student?

“since you don’t exactly seem like the type to go into underserved populations”

@Johnny

Child labor is one of the most misrepresented historical issues. Many of the children in those heart-breaking photos were actually in orphans put to work by their government authorities.

Also many aspects of capitalism have changed today. We have a much better understanding of things like sanitation and the long-term health effects of pollution. Child labor today would not be the same today just as adult labor is not the same.

I recommend you please read this take on the situation.

http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/child-labor-and-the-british-industrial-revolution/#axzz2ghJIz33A

@Shay

I’ve posted multiple explanations of the free-market and poverty. Did you watch the Walter E Williams video? Or read the 2 essays?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/2012/10/walter-e-williams/poverty-nonsense/

Shay how is government stopping poverty? Is it working? As long as government promises to help fight povery, but fails at it, it’s okay as long as they just try super-hard, rigth?

Has communist Cuba stopped poverty? How about communist China? Is there poverty in Sweden? How about France? Britain? Please explain to me what government does for poverty.

Socialism is extremely offensive in practice. Describing socalists as having late-onset mental retardation is nothing compared to the destruction socialism does to society. It is an ideology of force and control and violence.

You have no idea how utterly insane that sounds to most people living in Europe.

HAHAHAHAH

Are you quite all right?

I just realized something. “There is no consensus about the cause of the Great Depression.” Weird!

What’s weird about that? It’s perfectly true. The cause of the Great Depression is still one of the most argued about subjects in economics, even more so recently with the current recession.

Most economists, including many Keynsian economists, including the chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke, are in consensus that the Federal Reserve played a role. Oh the irony of this!

Played a role? Of course it played a role. From a Keynesian perspective it failed to borrow enough money to keep the economy running during a recession and failed to regulate the banks properly. Or do you mean failing to leave the free market to its own devices? You seem to be on very thin ice accusing others of being intellectually challenged.

Ben Bernanke also suggested (PDF) that it was the banks and independent financial institutions reluctance to provide credit that contributed to the vicious downward cycle of the Great Depression, not the Federal Reserve. The same thing is happening now in the UK, with small businesses starved of credit leading to a stagnant economy. A free market isn’t going to get a stagnant economy moving, though a good war might, sadly.

Making stuff up about history and economics might work on your usual libertarian territory, but it isn’t going to work among people who have some knowledge of these areas.

@Krebiozem

A good war doesn’t get the economy going. That is the broken window fallacy. There might be full employment as every works on making bombs, but who is growing the food? War in terrible for the economy (except the bankers who are financing the wars).

First of all, people need food and shelter to live, this is what a “living wage” refers to. Are you implying humans don’t need to eat to live?
Secondly, capitalism may be relatively new, but it has been around, and it has caused it’s own set of problems.
Thirdly, I’m not talking about herbal snake oil, I’m talking about heroin and cocaine. You seem to be under the impression that people are never self-serving and short-sighted.
Now, allow me to explain about the Great Chicago Fire. Before building codes came about, builders would make their constructions out of wood, which was what was cheapest. And they would build to the edge of their properties, which was most efficient. An entire city built like this was a fire hazard, and let to a large-scale demonstration of the concept of “The tragedy of the commons.”

There is no such thing as a “living wage.” That is a made-up, arbitrary term to incite as much emotion as possible.

Poe? Please. You’ve done enough. You can not possibly be serious.

Very first thing I found on Google for “living wage”:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_wage

In public policy, a living wage is the minimum income necessary for a worker to meet needs considered basic. This is not necessarily the same as subsistence, which refers to a biological minimum, though the two terms are commonly confused. These needs include shelter (housing) and other incidentals such as clothing and nutrition.

Also interesting to note, Adam Smith argued in favor of living wages.

@Gray Falcon

Heroin? You mean diacetylmorpine? You mean the drug that metabolizes to morphine? You mean one of the most important chemicals ever discovered in medicine?

You mean cocaine? One of the first anesthetics?

Prohibition of these chemicals has caused way more problems than ever existed when they were legal.

Tragedy of commons is one of the reasons why socialism/communism fails. Tragedy of the commons is an issue of too little property rights.

Wow – that was the biggest piece of YouTube garbage I’ve seen in a while…..this guy is a loon & Delsyid is not too far behind. I am reminded of the Lindon LaRouche idiots who would come around campus…..since Del here can’t seem to answer simple questions, I’m writing him off as a troll of the worst variety. Have fun guys – but I would just say ignore him…the great thing about these libertarians is that they can say all they want, but they’ll never actual enact any sort of change.

I’ve posted multiple explanations of the free-market and poverty.

I just read the article about poverty which gives an account of how the US government has done with regard to poverty:

In less than two centuries, we became the world’s richest nation by a long shot. Americans who today are deemed poor by Census Bureau definitions have more material goods than middle-class people as recently as 60 years ago. [..] Again, the statement that “our society creates poverty” is just plain nonsense. […]

It seems to me that this is a testament to how well the US government has done in looking after its citizens. Could do better? Of course, but it’s done a great deal better than some other countries with similar resources.

The author (who is black) then goes on to explain that black people in America* are poorer than white people because of their poor decisions:

Is having babies without the benefit of marriage a bad decision, and is doing so likely to affect income? Are dropping out of school and participating in criminal activity bad decisions, and are they likely to have an effect on income? Finally, do people have free will and the capacity to make decisions, or is their behavior a result of instincts over which they have no control?

I think the author ignores historical factors that lead people to make these poor decisions. Anyway, that’s another argument, but I’m having trouble seeing how this in any way supports libertarianism.

* I can’t bring myself to use the term “African-American” as a blanket term for black-skinned people since many of my friends are black, from Ghana, Nigeria, Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, Mauritius, Kenya, South Africa and other places. Obviously African-American doesn’t work for them, but neither does African-British. I’ll stick to “black” since they all seem comfortable with the word.

I read Delysid’s cite @544, and I found it very long on assertion, but very short in the way of citations. One citation was a report from 1833 – 180 years ago.

The article seems to suggest that child labor was on the way out by the end of the 19th century, but for some reasonit was necessary to include in the Fair labor Standards Act in 1938 provisions including that “Children under eighteen cannot do certain dangerous jobs, and children under the age of sixteen cannot work during school hours.”
Source –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Labor_Standards_Act

Why was that needed, you reckon?

Prohibition of these chemicals has caused way more problems than ever existed when they were legal.

I’m in favor of decriminalization of drugs, for various reasons, but I would tax them and use the proceeds for education and for rehabilitation of people with drug problems. I would also prohibit sale to minors. It’s not a perfect solution but I think it would be better than the current situation with organized crime and zero quality control.
Presumably taxation of that sort would be unacceptable in a libertarian society. Who would persuade those selling heroin to pay a tax to the people organizing drug eduation and running rehab clinics? I wonder how the problems that are associated with drugs of abuse would be ameliorated.
If you think that putting addictive drugs on the free market wouldn’t be a problem you might look at Japan after WW2 when vast amounts of amphetamines that had been intended for the miltary were released onto the general market. This led to widespread addiction and problems with organized crime that persist to this day. I believe something similar happened with heroin addicted GIs returning from Vietnam. Every society that methamphetamine is introduced to finds it becomes a problem. Even rats and mice will repeatedly dose themselves with these drugs until they die. How can a free market possibly deal with this?
The problem with addictive drugs is that they can lead people to behave in less than reasonable ways. Addiction is incompatible with the personal freedom and responsibility that are essential for libertarianism to work. How would you deal with this in your utopia dystopia?

@Krebiozen

Those studies about rats dosing themselves has been debunked. It was found out that rats kept in small cages with nothing else to do will dose themselves to death, but rats in large communities almost always turn down psychoactive drugs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park

@Krebiozen

Did you know that it is illegal in the United States to study DEA schedule 1 drugs for any postive benefits? The research regarding psychotropics has been undeniably one-sided for political reasons.

In Portugal they decriminalized all drugs, including cocaine and heroin, and addction rates have gone down. They are closing prisons because there aren’t enough prisoners.

Child labor is one of the most misrepresented historical issues. […] Also many aspects of capitalism have changed today. We have a much better understanding of things like sanitation and the long-term health effects of pollution. Child labor today would not be the same today just as adult labor is not the same.

I saw child labor in India in the late 80s, I took several overnight bus and train journeys and was shocked to see children of 5 or 6 years old boarding the bus/train at each stop selling snacks and drinks, at 3 or 4 in the morning. This is a modern country with nuclear weapons and a space program.

Even more disturbingly I was offered child prostitutes in both India and Egypt (You like little girls?”, “No!”, “Little boys?”, “@!#%&!!!”) .

Also indentured servitude is common in the developing world and is indistinguishable from slavery. I just don’t see how fewer rules and less government as promoted by libertarianism would prevent the same things from happening in the US or Europe. Feel free to enlighten me.

@Krebiozen

India has had a socialist government for decades and a unique religion caste system. You cannot possibly blame libertarianism for the situation in India.

Until 1991, all Indian governments followed protectionist policies that were influenced by socialist economics. Widespread state intervention and regulation largely walled the economy off from the outside world. An acute balance of payments crisis in 1991 forced the nation to liberalise its economy;[207] since then it has slowly moved towards a free-market system[208][209] by emphasising both foreign trade and direct investment inflows.[210]

It takes time to recover from the destruction of socialism and a deeply entrenched racist culture. India is improving because it has been shifting towards more capitalism. It doesn’t work overnight.

Even Somalia has drastically improved since the socialist governmetn collapsed. It’s far from a utopia, but Somalia now is the best off it has been in 100 years in terms of telecommunications, the economy, and health care. (Though access to water is still a problem).

Delysid keeps answering my questions with questions. Why cant he provide an example of how a libertarian society cares for the vulnerable members?

@Shay

The question is unanswerable. I don’t know why you don’t understand. A libertarian society is not one unified bureacuracy. You are basicaly asking “how is a libertarian society going to become a cenrally planned society?” You are begging the question.

How are YOU going to help people in a free society? What are YOU personally going to do?

@Shay

People should give to charity. That is part of being an ethical person.

Capitalism in general continuously lifts people out of poverty. Competition produces excellence with lower prices and higher quality. A socialist would look at a soceity at a given moment and be outraged because the richest in society have more than the poor. A capitalist looks at the same situation and realizes that the poor have more than the richest people in society had a time before.

I’ve sent you several economists who have explained the same concept better than I have. I’m suspicious that you just ignored this. Are you sincerely asking or are you just begging the question and trying to confirm your own societal prejudices?

is capitalism humane?

Also will someone please tell me how to format italics and links on this blog?

@Delysid,

According to wikipedia (which isn’t even a reference), rats didn’t like the taste of morphine so they drank water. Beside, I’ve never seen a drug addict ingest morphine by the mouth and tasting it (pills notwithstanding, we don’t taste pills but do I need to mention that?).

Alain

Delysid:

[i] text [/i] for italics, replace the square brackets with the less than and greater than signs.

If you want quote something at length, [blockquote] text [/blockquote] (same deal with replacing brackets with less than greater than signs)

[a href=”URL”] text you want to use for link, or can be the URL even[/a] (same deal with replacing brackets with less than greater than signs)

@Narad

Dentistry is medicine. Dentists aren’t physcians, but they are doctors.

The latter is purely a matter of state law. In any event, dentists certainly don’t have the same prescribing privileges as medical doctors, and those that “test it out” are likely to wind up with none at all. Nonetheless, I’m sure that this will comfort you while scraping teeth.

I’m assuming Narad that you are unaware that the mouth is part of the human body because you have an asshole at both ends of the GI tract.

Considering that I’ve treated you quite mildly, and certainly with more patience that you apparently deserve, this clumsy tantrum seems like a bit much. No doubt your chairside manner will be lovely. At least it’ll be hard for people to point out flaws in your bizarre attempts at reasoning with your hands in their mouths.

I said I’m in Ohio. I’m sure you all with some light research one could figure out where I attend dental school.

You’ll have to excuse my failing to notice that you had stuck this into the “location” box a couple of times. Indeed, I was largely ignoring this thread for most of its existence, until I wandered by and mentioned to no one in particular that the term “wealth” seems to be bandied about with no underlying definition to allow pronouncements about the rules that govern “it.”

By the way, I had a 23 (99th percentile) on my DAT and a 31S (85th percentile) on my MCAT, along with a 3.5 GPA in a Master of Science in the Biomedical Sciences.

That’s nice. I’ve scored an 800 on every section of the GRE, and the second attempt, a decade after the first, was just for fun, to keep a friend company. My preparation was exactly three vodka tonics. How’s the air down there?

Protip: They’re not intelligence tests, they’re designed to measure the likelihood of first-year program success.

I got into medical school, too, and chose dentistry.

I’m sure your explanation of this will be fascinating. Was medical school a fallback plan in case you didn’t get into dentistry?

I guarantee I have stronger science credentials than most of you here.

This is without question the most hilariously delusional item yet to spring from your keyboard. You have proved incapable of arguing your way out of a wet paper sack and demonstrate general ignorance every time you make the mistake of straying from vague pronouncements.

You are shockingly outclassed here in any branch of science, and probably in every effort of human endeavor aside from carpet and toilet removal, for which there’s no particular reason to believe you were very good at anyway.

Go ahead and go down that road.

What “road” would that be? Eliciting demonstrations of your all-encompassing scientific prowess?

When did I say there is no reasons for unions to exist?

You clumsily mocked them as somehow equating to “communist economics” while apparently forgetting that you have effectively argued in favor of trade guilds in the case of medicine.

People should have the right to free association. But if a union member applied to work for me, I would just laugh.

I take it that failure to understand why this sentence is nonsensical on its face can be read as wholesale ignorance of labor law, to be added to your achievements.

Delysid,

Those studies about rats dosing themselves has been debunked.

That’s interesting, thanks. it fits with some ideas I have about opiate addiction*. I don’t think happy, emotionally fulfilled people get addicted to opiates, as much of the euphoria they induce in some people is due to relief of chronic emotional pain. I have little evidence for this, apart from the rarity of patients getting addicted to morphine in hospital settings.

However I see nothing about stimulant drugs like cocaine and amphetamines, which are the ones that rodents will dose themselves with until they die, or so I read several years ago (Goodman and Gilman: The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics IIRC).

It was found out that rats kept in small cages with nothing else to do will dose themselves to death, but rats in large communities almost always turn down psychoactive drugs.

Assuming this research holds up, is that true of all psychoactive drugs? I can find a study that found that miserable rats are more vulnerable to amphetamine addiction, but little else.

How is your libertarian society going to make sure its citizens are all happy and engaged in the community so they are not vulnerable to these drugs?

Did you know that it is illegal in the United States to study DEA schedule 1 drugs for any postive benefits? The research regarding psychotropics has been undeniably one-sided for political reasons.

I actually agree with you about something – I guessed from your ‘nym that you shared some of my views in this area. Schedule 1 drugs have no positive benefits by definition, which is news to UK doctors who routinely use diacetylmorphine to treat acute pain in MI, for example. I think regulations have been loosened to some extent – for example I have a copy of Rick Strassman’s ‘DMT: The Spirit Molecule’ sitting on my bookshelf next to me.

In Portugal they decriminalized all drugs, including cocaine and heroin, and addction rates have gone down. They are closing prisons because there aren’t enough prisoners.

Part of the deal is that those found in possession of these drugs are compelled to attend therapy sessions in one of 73 government-run clinics around the country. I think this kind of approach to drugs, along with abstinence, is the way to go, but I don’t see it as a strong support for libertarianism.

* Some years ago I was going through a very stressful time – my son was having brain surgery, my wife was seeing another man, I had exams coming up at work – I was only 20 years old and was in state of serious anxiety. A friend gave me a benzodiazepine pill to calm me down, and I experienced absolute euphoria and the first decent night’s sleep I had had in weeks.

Some months later, having recovered my usual state of calm in the face of the train wreck that passed for my life, I was offered another identical pill, and remembering the euphoria it induced before, I was tempted and I took it. It had almost no effect at all (so much for the placebo effect). That made me wonder about the effect of downers like this.

@ Krebiozen ( @ 513):

I’m glad to hear that you’re doing better. Altho’ you may think of RI as a means of rehabilitation, it’s entirely possible that our collective ( heh) views your own contributions as similarly rehabilitative. Seriously, I think that I can say that..

I have so far been very fortunate, economically as well as healthwise ( knock on wood/ touch wood): but it’s not something that any of us have control over – which makes much talk that opposes a safety net sound hollow and cavalier to me.

My cousin has recently had a run of horrible ‘luck”: since last October, she has requireded two surgeries to repair old muscle/ joint injuries ( no, she’s not a professional athlete, she’s an executive secretary), then she re-injured the repaired arm in work and now learns that she needs brain surgery to remove an ONS meningioma that is destroying her vision. I have spent the last 14 months ‘talking her through’ this series of catastrophes. She’s divorced, lives alone and had to rely on a guy who lives next door to help her ( her son lives 100 miles away)- she’s very independent and therefore feels absolutely miserable especially when she couldn’ work at all.

Illness and injury happen and to believe yourself magickally protected against their occurence is similar to falling for woo that proclaims you cantotally prevent cancer or CVD by taking vitamins or eating a certain diet: it’s denialism and whistling past the graveyard.

So please, keep up on your daily personal rehab and continue rehabbing the rest of us.

@Narad

Dentists do more surgery than most physicians. I give nerve blocks every day. We don’t have the same prescribing privileges because, to quote you, “it’s a matter of state law.” I see you are as ignorant about dentistry as you are about economics.

Oh you got an 800 on the GRE? You must be so good at arithmetic and spelling tests!

Thanks Denice, it’s very kind of you to say so. There’s a whole long story I haven’t told here about getting sick that eventually led me here, through some interesting experiences with both conventional and alternative medicine I have occasionally alluded to – it’s amazing what you’ll try if you are desperate enough! One day I’ll relate more of my journey, but for now all I will say is I’m glad I made it here more or less intact.

Chris –

I believe we are in violent agreement.

See my post @540, Delysid’s response (and link) @545, and then my post you quoted @558.

In case it isn’t clear, let me say that child labor wasn’t stopped because factory and mine owners hearts grew 3 sizes overnight. Child labor was halted because it was made illegal.

Exactly, Johnny. I kind of thought that Delysid needed more visual aids.

(also I am not reading his comments anymore)

I can only conclude that *nothing* would convince Delysid that climate change is real, no matter what, and that *nothing* would convince him that libertarianism is ever non-optimal.

In my view, that’s the end of the issue, as you can’t really have rational argumentation on those grounds.

It’s a shame; there were at least a few things I’d agreed with him about.

@Khani

I thought I’ve been very clear that I don’t believe that the climate is changing, I knw it s. The climate is always changng. I don’t deny that humans have a certain degree of impact, as we inhabit the Earth. I believe thst the negative outcomes are not as certain as being projected and that they are being exaggerated for political reasons. I believe the raw numbers, but not the certainty of causee and effect and predictions of the models.

And I think it is time to ignore Delysid.

How come not one person has defended government?

Excuse me? Interrobang at #212 mentioned the Clean Air Act that stopped killer smogs. Orac at #260 mentioned that

Funny, then, isn’t it, how health care costs are equal or better quality at much lower cost in countries with universal health coverage

and universal healthcare programs are government run.
Old Rockin’ Dave @ #314 gave a list of US Government achievements.
Chris @ #329 and #334 pointed out the government run GenBank and National Weather Service. At #477, I mentioned how Medicare and Medicaid allow people to have desperately needed operations that they otherwise couldn’t afford, or that could bankrupt them. Grey Falcon @ #549 mentioned building codes.
Delysid is flat out lying when he says no-one has defended government. We can therefore conclude that he is acting in bad faith and should ignore him.

Shay: Why cant he provide an example of how a libertarian society cares for the vulnerable members?

Delysid:The question is unanswerable. I don’t know why you don’t understand. A libertarian society is not one unified bureacuracy. You are basicaly asking “how is a libertarian society going to become a cenrally planned society?”

So, given the claims inherent in Delysid’s response in this exchange

1) Libertarian societies cannot become centrally planned societies
2) Caring for our most vulnerable members requires a centrally planned society
Therefore
3)Libertarian societiescan offer no solution to the problem of caring for their most vulnerable members.

I’d call that a clear loss for Liberatarian societies.

I suppose in a Libertarian society (is it a society at all?) the most vulnerable members are dependent of the goodwillingness of individual people.

I’m sorry, but I’m rather dependent of some government which isn’t judgemental about my sexual oriëntation, the way I live, my past and everything else going on in my life, than from some goodwilling people, which might help me if I just be the way they want me to be.

Renate: clearly, you are not a member of the deserving poor.

The state riding herd on a citizen’s sex habits, diet, smoking, etc is not ok, but individual donors doing so is fine because it is the donor’s money. I think that would be the reasoning.

Delysid:The question is unanswerable. I don’t know why you don’t understand. A libertarian society is not one unified bureacuracy. You are basicaly asking “how is a libertarian society going to become a cenrally planned society?

Forget helping the needy, his society doesn’t even have the means to create a police or fire department.

How are YOU going to help people in a free society? What are YOU personally going to do?

Start a revolution. Shouldn’t be too hard, there would be plenty of serfs happy to fight for real freedom, rather than the despotic rule of the wealthy.

Renate: clearly, you are not a member of the deserving poor.

The state riding herd on a citizen’s sex habits, diet, smoking, etc is not ok, but individual donors doing so is fine because it is the donor’s money. I think that would be the reasoning.

In other words, the wealthy are given the authority to decide who gets to live and who doesn’t. This “free society” looks an awful lot like feudalism.

Sign me up, GF. The spousal unit thinks I”m the reincarnation of Baron von Steuben, anyway.

I think I’ve beaten my example to death, but I was thinking of Delysid’s challenge this morning (how are YOU going to help people in a free society?) and wondering.

How would I be able to provide more help to my colleague with my limited resources than she currently receives? I suppose I could take her into my home and provide her with food and clothing, but her medical bills would be out of my reach. And when I die (I estimate that I’m about 25-30 years older than she is), who will step in to help her?

Well, our resident libertarian seems to have disappeared for the moment. What seems to have happened?

Depends on what time zone he’s in. For all we know, he’s asleep or having dinner.

Feudalism is a mostly useless term to describe a caste system of slavery and monarchy.

A free society is one in which all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

Your inalienable rights end where another’s inalienable rights begin. This is the exact opposite of slavery. (and yes I am aware that some of the founding fathers owned slaves. This does not the principle wrong).

Delysid- When one person has control of the resources, they have power over others. In order for your free society to exist, we would have to become communists.

Grey Falcoln – Not that I agree with Delysid, but I’m not sure that follows. As my mother has always told me, “life is unfair”. I cannot see that just because someone has control of one or more resources doesn’t mean that the society is nominally free.

Mephistopheles O’Brien- Good point… Communism is a stretch. That said, anti-trust legislation has its purpose. Functionally, there’s no difference between “Obey me or I shoot you” and “Obey me or you starve”.

There’s no reason to argue with Delysid; he’s made it clear that no matter what happens, he will not change his opinion.

To me, refusing to put forth criteria for changing one’s mind is a pretty clear indication there’s no call for further … talk, shall we say?

It’s not an argument, as that implies some level of rational give-and-take, along with some room for shifting of viewpoints and changing of minds on either side.

It’s a shame we didn’t get a better libertarian to argue, as some of them do have some excellent ideas to offer a real discussion about politics.

Grey Falcon – can’t argue with that. There’s clearly a value (in my view) to anti-trust legislation and some worker protections.

Pity the poor bot…who keeps alerting her flying monkey squad with her daily “Media Updates, and who keeps posting her Spam.

Her good works have not gone unnoticed however, at AoA…

“Anne I don’t know how you do it, day after day, week after week, year after year. You consistently leave comments on these pages and are often mocked & ridiculed. Thank you for not giving up the fight.

Posted by: ChrissyD | October 03, 2013 at 11:31 PM”

@Khani

A better libertarian. lol. Boos from the crowd is a sign that the visting team was the victor. It takes a mob of greater than 20 progressives to debate 1 libertarian.

“give and take”

How perfect for this blog. Giving and taking irrational socialist viewpoints with voluntaryism is like giving and taking alternative medicine with science-based medicine.

You failed to convince me of anything whatsoever and apparently I failed as well. Here is the tragedy- I live my life peacefully as an advocate for freedom and voluntarily relationships and you will use (or vote) for government to interfere, regulate, and tax me. Sadly in the eyes of the ignorant masses the latter is ethical.

Delysid – since you failed to convince anyone and nobody convinced you. Does that mean you agree with Khani? Just asking.

Yeah, sure, why not. To my knowledge a virulent socialist has never admitted to changing his position because of a superior argument on the spot. People’s ideologies shift over a period of time after the debates in silence. I don’t need my ego stroked with a “halleluah conversion” and it would be foolish to ever expect this.

I’ve gotten into heated arguments with progressives before, only to see them a year later posting libertarian arguments. Over the last few years I’ve had a bunch of friends, even some acquitances, tell me that I shaped their their political beliefs.

Libertarianism is the only philsophy that makes sense.

Delysid, many people are indeed speaking with you, and so it may have been easy to mistake me for one of the others.

If you go back and reread, however, you will find that I didn’t try to convince you about climate change, nor about government. I made a few factual corrections to what people have said, but I don’t have a strong emotional connection to current forms of government, nor to libertarianism, nor to socialism.

However, you have consistently refused to give any criteria to meet for what evidence would change your mind, either in the case of climate change or in the case of libertarianism.

That seems to indicate that *nothing* would change your mind on either point. No evidence, no reasoning, no science, no religion, no logic and no magic wand.

That’s an irrational point of view, I’m afraid, and I’m really not much interested in discussing anything with those terms attached.

That would also go for anyone on the other side of these issues, mind you. For example, if someone arguing climate change was real refuses to give me a clear answer for “what would change your mind?” I would not be particularly interested in discussing the matter with that person either.

It’s very difficult to defend the principles freedom on this blog. It’s like I’ve been on trial against 20 prosecutors as my own lawyer.

My worldview took years to develop and countless of studying. Once you get it everything is interconnected.

Read Human Action.

http://mises.org/document/3250

Read Human Action.

Ah, that explains why you’ll never be able to answer Khani’s question.

[Praxeology’s] statements and propositions are not derived from experience. They are, like those of logic and mathematics, a priori. They are not subject to verification or falsification on the ground of experience and facts.
–Von Mises, Human Action

Your worldview is a religion, Delysid.

@AdamG

Please explain to me how the praxeology approach to human action is religious.

o my knowledge a virulent socialist has never admitted to changing his position because of a superior argument on the spot. People’s ideologies shift over a period of time after the debates in silence.

That’s funny. I’ve never seen a virulent Libertarian ever admit to changing his position, ever. 🙂

My worldview took years to develop and countless of studying. Once you get it everything is interconnected.

A JFK assassination conspiracy theorist or a 9/11 Truther couldn’t have said it better. 🙂

Did you know that it is illegal in the United States to study DEA schedule 1 drugs for any postive benefits?

Funny, I know someone who’s been doing Schedule 1 research for over a decade, and there’s a lab a mere 20 minute walk from me that’s been doing it for far longer than that.

Once again, you’re really better suited to vague platitudes, as factual statements seem to be like exploding cigars in your hands.

Orac nice red herring.

But since you mentioned it, I’m not a JFK conspiracy theorist but I have heard some intriguing and convincing arguments regarding it. Members of the CIA had very plausible motives for whacking Kennedy (Bay of Pigs humilation and him sleeping with some of their wives) and they certainly had the means to kill him. In the 50’s and 60’s those guys were literally disposing of leaders worldwide. Is it really crazy to suspect that they did it here?

9/11 truthers who do their investigating on Youtube are in whackjob land. That’s a false equivalence.

I’ve changed my position regarding libertarianism before- in the direction towards anarcho-captialism.

Please explain to me how the praxeology approach to human action is religious.

I thought it was pretty obvious from the quote…Mises admits that Praxeology, like religion, is not falsifiable.

@Narad

Bullshit. Once a drug is classified as Class I and accused as having “no medical value” it then becomes illegal to study the drug for potential medical uses, blocking it indefinitely and arbitrarily from science.

The government grants special permission to some researchers to study schedule 1 drugs (most of which is proving harm) but it’s few and far between and the results have never led to a drug being removed from schedule 1.

“For Schedule 1 drugs like marijuana, the vast majority of money for research comes from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). “NIDA…has a CONGRESSIONAL MANDATE TO ONLY STUDY SUBSTANCES OF ABUSE AS SUBSTANCES OF ABUSE,” says Don Abrams, chief of hematology/oncology at San Francisco General Hospital and professor of clinical medicine at the University of California, San Francisco

http://mag.newsweek.com/2010/11/03/why-it-s-hard-to-do-marijuana-research.html

@AdamG

He says praxeology is a priori like those of mathematics and logic. How did you twist that around to religion? So you are saying mathematics is a religion?

Jesus Christ the confirmation bias around here is unbelievable. Everything about libertarianism gets twisted around to mean the opposite of what it is.

“For Schedule 1 drugs like marijuana, the vast majority of money for research comes from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). “NIDA…has a CONGRESSIONAL MANDATE TO ONLY STUDY SUBSTANCES OF ABUSE AS SUBSTANCES OF ABUSE,”

I’m afraid that full caps don’t salvage your actual assertion. Indeed, the quote itself makes matters even worse, but I’ll have occasion to return to the underlying theme a bit later.

@Narad

I said it is illegal, by congressional mandate, to study substances of abuse for reasons other than substances of abuse. My statement for which you mocked me was a fact. The government is corrupt and massively hypocritical, so there are people who get special permission, but the law says it is illegal to study drugs for positive benefits.

I’d expect someone else to apologize and admit their mistake but based your demonstrated arrogance I expect you spout more irrelevant fallacies.

He says praxeology is a priori like those of mathematics and logic.

Well duh, yes of course that’s what he says. Religious thinkers often say ‘religion is beyond the realm of science.’ Do you not see the parallel here?

My favorite arguments I hear attacking libertarianism posted from a satire site.

There are always going to be bad people, so we have to give tons of power to an institution bad people will constantly get into.

If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain. If you do vote, the system represents you and you have no right to complain.

Libertarians hate government. Government=society and society=people and people is a superset of poor people. Ergo, selfish libertards hate poor people. QED.

Taxes are not Slavery, Wages are!

[CHECKMATE] There is no government on earth where libertarians are in charge. Therefore your ideas stink.

If you don’t like it here, why don’t you just move to Somalia?

Help! Lolbertards are forcing me to follow their beliefs of me not forcing my beliefs on them.

I care so much about the poor that I’m willing to make the ultimate sacrifice and give them your money.

It’s immoral to earn too much but not to steal too much. lolbertarians are just too immature to understand morality.

Statist discovers one simple trick to win arguments! Lolbertarians hate him! (Somalia.jpg)

We need to give the government more control or the oil companies will take over. The only way to avoid having a small group of people having all the power is to give a different small group of people all the power.

Libertarianism is only for rich white people! Therefore it is only logical to always compare them to Somalians.

@AdamG

How is science going to predict my behavior?

The problem with Keynesianism is that logical positivism cannot predict or explain human action and empirical data itself is insufficient to describe economics, which in turn implies that empirical data cannot falsify economic theory and that logical positivism is not the proper method of conducting economic science

Posting things like that illustrates a refusal to genuinely engage.

But we knew you didn’t want to genuinely engage as soon as you didn’t answer my question.

Orac uses a similar question for antivaxxers, and I’ve noticed that like you, they may answer a lot of other questions and make a lot of other posts, they somehow never do get around to answering…

What is going to convince me that the alarmism doomsday scenarios predicted by the IPCC are undeniably true and that radical government intervention in the economy is going to solve the problem?

Nothing.

It’s not the government’s role to stop climate change. If people want to voluntarily take action against climate change with their own money, by all means they should be free to save the world.

Isn’t libertarianism great? I won’t stop you from doing what you think is necessary to save the world and you don’t force me to pay or participate in your schemes. I have other ideas that I think will benefit mankind far more than global warming doomsday preperation. I won’t force you into my plans.

The problem with Keynesianism is that logical positivism cannot predict or explain human action and empirical data itself is insufficient to describe economics, which in turn implies that empirical data cannot falsify economic theory and that logical positivism is not the proper method of conducting economic science

WOW you literally just copied and pasted that from wikipedia. What happened to the worldview that took ‘countless studying?’

Yeah it was well said. Go ahead and dispute it with somethong better than hero a derp it’s a religion.

There are always going to be bad people, so we have to give tons of power to an institution bad people will constantly get into.

LIbertarianism sounds like it might work on a planet full of reasonable, well-balanced, ethical, honest, altruistic people. Sadly, whether you like it or not, there are enough bad people in the world to badly screw things up for the rest of us. Equally sadly, people who seem reasonable are capable of acting in surprisingly selfish and unaltruistic ways. Any way of running society needs to take this into account.

For a fictional example I like Robert Anton Wilson’s trilogy ‘Schrödinger’s Cat’ which is set in three parallel universes. In one of these universes Barbara Marx Hubbard becomes president of Unistat (a fictional version of the USA), abolishes victimless crimes, makes crimes against property much less heinous than currently, and puts a force field around Mississippi (for years I have remembered this as Texas).

All the violent people who do not respond to psychotherapy and other behavior modification are sent to MIssissippi where they set up whatever form of government they wish, and John Wayne becomes their leader (IIRC, it’s a long time since I read it). The rest are governed under more or less libertarian principals.

Without a similar real-life deus ex machina, I don’t see how libertarianism could work. That doesn’t even begin to look at how you might deal with unemployment, poverty, health provision, child care and education and all the other things that government deals with with varying degrees of success at present.

Democracy does at least attempt to keep bad people out of positions of power. Real life is messy, and there are no perfect solutions. As in alternative medicine if you think you have found a panacea you are almost certainly deceiving yourself.

Delysid

I’m not a JFK conspiracy theorist but

Please tell me this a Poe. I find it hard to believe anyone could be that lacking in self-awareness.

Orac, responding to Delysid:

My worldview took years to develop and countless of studying. Once you get it everything is interconnected.

A JFK assassination conspiracy theorist or a 9/11 Truther couldn’t have said it better. 🙂

IANA Psychiatrist, nor do I play one on TV, but Wikipedia says:

Ideas of reference and delusions of reference describes a phenomenon in which an individual holds a belief or perception that is irrelevant, unrelated or innocuous and assumes a connection to something else, on account of some special personal significance, that is otherwise unrelated. It is “the notion that everything one perceives in the world relates to one’s own destiny.”[1]

IANA Psychiatrist, nor do I play one on TV, but Wikipedia says… [ideas/delusions of reference]

Yes, he does seem to be rather smitten with the term “worldview.” Moreover, because he is so fascinated with his own creation, he apparently comes to the conclusion that everybody else must have some corresponding mental construct and, naturally, that these psychic totems and comparison of their names (assigned by himself, of course) constitutes the totality of intellectual exchange.

It’s like a game of Blind Man’s Bluff that takes place between projections of plural minds onto some sort of hitherto underappreciated plane of existence. He surely doesn’t conceive of it in these terms, but all the same, I’m hard-pressed to conclude anything other than that he’s basically a very drab occultist who fancies himself the protagonist of some sort of inescapably metaphysical play.*

Delysid of course is almost certainly unaware of my time in the clergy, which is leading me to increasing amusement given his conduct and the allusory pseudonym. There’s no telling whether serious construction on La Sagrada Paranoia had already commenced, but it seems safe to say that either way, it’s likely that he’s made the worst of it.

Now, the delusions of grandeur are writ large. Does someone have Beziehungswahn in his Weltanschauung? It strikes me as rather the opposite; the primitive superstructure arrived at after “countless of” internalizing aphorisms looks to be deployed to repress any such thing from getting anywhere in the vicinity.

It goes without saying that tat tvam asi is right out of the picture. Throw in a nonexistent grounding in the humanities, and one winds up with bizarre constructions such as “There is no such thing as a ‘living wage.’ That is a made-up, arbitrary term….”

“If not wise order, then a fiendish design,” it’s been said.

* Perhaps Situationism turned on its head; I’m well out of my
depth, though, as I only encountered it as synchronistic fruit while musing on the patient case at hand.

My worldview took years to develop and countless of studying. Once you get it everything is interconnected.

My own experience is more similar to the worldview of the characters in ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’. The more hours I study, the more my philosophy develops, the more obvious it is that things are not connected, and that apparent connections between one sphere of existence and another are random clang associations.

Delysid: Whoa, calm down there.
BTW, isn’t it interesting that almost all libertarians are white males, who are certain, at least in their own minds, to come out on top? I’ve never met a female libertarian, probably because they realize that men have no incentive not to rape, pillage and imprison people if the rule of law were absent. I also find it interesting that libertarians tend to chafe at age of consent laws.

I said it is illegal, by congressional mandate, to study substances of abuse for reasons other than substances of abuse.

There is no need to try to polish the assertion, as it’s sitting right there at #561.

My statement for which you mocked me was a fact.

Then how, exactly, the fυck is it that MAPS is currently sponsoring such trials in the U.S.?

I’d expect someone else to apologize and admit their mistake but based your demonstrated arrogance I expect you spout more irrelevant fallacies.

Tell everyone again about how Marie Curie worked from home. Mirrors aren’t just for looking in people’s mouths, cupcake.

Don’t forget Ayn Rand. She wasn’t really a libertarian, but those creepy rape fantasies fit right in with your hypothesis. Most of the libertarians I have encountered have been either potheads (male and female) or gun nuts (mostly male), for obvious reasons I think.

Don’t forget about rich white kids, Krebiozen. In my experience wealth is almost always the driving factor behind the “I’ve got mine” mentality. Given that Delysid gets exasperated by the few months spent doing minimum wage work, I have a feeling that Delysid’s household was not exactly struggling to get by.

Breaking my rule and engaging with the lying troll. I know I should know better.

You failed to convince me of anything whatsoever and apparently I failed as well.

Around here, people insist you back up your assertions with evidence. You have made several claims that could politely be called inaccurate. You have also admitted that nothing could convince you that AGW is real and potentially disastrous.

There are always going to be bad people, so we have to give tons of power to an institution bad people will constantly get into.

Ever heard the phrase “checks and balances”? Democracies have a lot of those. In South Africa, the government has lost a number of court cases. Recently, a prosecution that was abandoned on spurious grounds was reinstated. How would you prevent abuses of power in a libertarian society?

If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain. If you do vote, the system represents you and you have no right to complain.

What a strawman.

Libertarians hate government. Government=society and society=people and people is a superset of poor people. Ergo, selfish libertards hate poor people.

Another strawman.

If you don’t like it here, why don’t you just move to Somalia?

Somalia is a perfect example of what happens when government breaks down. The comment is a fair one.

We need to give the government more control or the oil companies will take over. The only way to avoid having a small group of people having all the power is to give a different small group of people all the power.

See my comment on checks and balances above. Also, politicians can be voted out of power if they are corrupt or incompetent. Businessmen can’t.

It’s not the government’s role to stop climate change.

You have no idea how dead wrong you are. The main role of government is to protect the citizenry. If the effects of global warming turn out to be even half as bad as the scientists think, we are looking at hundreds of millions of deaths and vicious wars over resources. Under those circumstances, I would say government has an obligation to act.

Kreb: Oh, god, how could I forget Ayn Rand? One could write an entire dissertation about her psychological problems. I tried to read the Fountainhead once. I quit about midway through the first chapter because it was too creeptastic and appallingly written. I don’t know what it was with her; self-hatred taken to the max, probably.

Potheads I can mildly excuse; most of them will probably shut up as marijauna creeps ever closer to becoming legal.

Kreb: Also, what do you mean she ‘wasn’t really a libertarian?

More “irrelevant fallacies.” It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

The government is corrupt and massively hypocritical, so there are people who get special permission,

Oh, I see. Naturally, they picked this guy to get the keys to the MDMA cabinet.

but the law says it is illegal to study drugs for positive benefits.

Show me the statute, Perry Mason. NIDA’s “mandate” is here.

It is truly mind-boggling that your reading skills are so poor that you can’t even understand the quote that you’re invoking for support. The National Institute on Drug Abuse doesn’t fund studies looking for positive effects of drugs of abuse, so you conclude that all such studies are illegal, and the ones that plainly exist are explained as the result of weird and shadowy government machinations.

You’re delusional. Perhaps it’s time to examine the plausibility of your actually being in dental school.

PGP,

Also, what do you mean she ‘wasn’t really a libertarian?

She denounce libertarianism and described herself as a “radical for capitalism”; she was what libertarians call a minarchist, recognizing that we need some government but it should be kept to a minimum, a position I have some sympathy with. I can’t find any sources for this apart from Wikipedia, but I have read this elsewhere too.

I tried (unsuccessfully) to read Ayn Rand’s books. Her lasting claim to fame is her association with Alan Greenspan, the former director of the Federal Reserve. Greenspan has tried to rewrite the history of his tenure at the Federal Reserve:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Greenspan

Thanks to Ginger Taylor’s Twitter feed, we have this WHDT-9 interview with Mark Blaxill about the November, 2013 Vaccine Court Hearings. (I’m still waiting for Jennifer Larson to tell us when Congressman Darell Issa has scheduled those hearings).

@PGP: can you PLEASE stop with the over-generalizations? I could introduce you to many men who have no desire to rape, pillage, and imprison. And many of them are white. Your hatred for men and disgust for most people is very sad. And it’s a major reason I skip over almost all your comments, because I’m tired of finding the nuggets of gold amongst all the dross of hatred.

AdamG,

Don’t forget about rich white kids, Krebiozen.

Most of those I have met IRL were conservative Conservatives – I’m in the UK remember, and I haven’t knowingly encountered many on line, probably because of the places I frequent. I have heard about the USian phenomenon of course, and I still think it’s a sort of rebellion against the parents who I’m sure are mostly pillars of the right wing establishment.

MI Dawn,
I’m a white AngloSaxon Protestant (by birth) male. I’m trying to slowly convince PGP that black swans do exist.

Delysid @ some number less than infinity:

“I don’t deny that humans have a certain degree of impact, as we inhabit the Earth. I believe thst the negative outcomes are not as certain as being projected and that they are being exaggerated for political reasons. ”

As a professor of astronomy and physics, I probably know a lot more practicing earth scientists than a random dentistry student I’ve also talked a lot to climatologists and atmospheric physicists, read a fair amount of the subject, and looked at state of the controversy from the inside.

And from that, I conclude that Delysid has been hornswoggled by the propaganda effort. The fact that we’re in big trouble is not at all controversial among real experts. There is no controversy to speak of — it’s a classic manufactoversy, one of the best-crafted ever. The scientists ffreely admit that we don’t know exactly how big the trouble is, but it easily could be very, very bad. A true conservative would heed this warning and insist on mitigation measures, because of the principle of caution.

But any mitigation measure requires some kind of worldwide orgranization, on a larger scale even than sovereign states. And that’s anathema to a Libertarian. Therefore the problem cannot exist.

Delysid is reasoning from consequences — he doesn’t like the implications if this is true, so it can’t be true. All his Libertarian buds agree with him, so that makes it final.

I harken back to the plot of “The Postman.” At the end of the day, civilization wasn’t destroyed by war or climate change, it was destroyed by the “survivalists” who attacked and destroyed anyone that attempted to “save or restore” what you and I would consider civil society.

As to Delsyid – he’s not too far off…..

Delysid still hasn’t explained how his “free society” would deal with a fire breaking out, especially if there were no fire code. It never occurs to him that rules exist for a reason other than being mean.

A few things:

Ideas of reference occur when a person has trouble differentiating what is happening on the outside vs on the inside of his or her head. Obviously, since all the world appears to swirl around us centrifugally, the sufferer thinks himself its axis without understanding that each other person also experiences a similar phenomenon. But then comprehending others’ views is not their particular strong suit.

I also attempted to read Ayn Rand, The last sentence of the paragraph above ( possibly more) applies to Ms Rand also.

PGP, you need to meet different people, especially men, so you can learn which ones to avoid like the plague. Not all men are horrible, believe me, I have known, I mean, I am acquainted with quite a few normal ones who I don’t want to scream at all of the time. I have a few who follow me around. They can be like slightly lost, over-sized children who are forever in need of assistance and encouragement. Really, they’re frequently quite adorable. And useful.

Kreb, we both are what I call ‘historically Christian” – that means that our families probably were so in the past. Us, not so much. We are therefore WAS

I encounter opportunistic libertarians amongt the woo-meisters and anti-vaxxers I survey- the philosophy is a good fit because they want to:
– earn money and not pay taxes
– not vaccinate their children
– provide ( quasi) medical services without governmental overview
– sell (quasi) medicines et al w/o governmental overview
– spread (quasi) medical information w/o governmental overview.

They despise services that would interfere with any part of their business or those which cost money and raise taxes.

Delysid’s allusions to political ideologies in quasi-religious terms and to some sort of conversion struck me as interesting. For example:

Few claims make me laugh like “I used to be a libertarian and then I grew up.” That would mean that you recognized the failure of the state and the economics of free-markets, then went back and decided that the government is the solution again. This is about as likely as an atheist deciding that he is now a Young Earth Creationist. I don’t doubt that somewhere this has happened, but I have yet to ever see this kind of conversion.

As an aside, apparently atheists convert to creationism all the time, but even if true it’s not really relevant.

What is relevant, I think, is that Delysid seems to have undergone something resembling a religious conversion, in which the scales fell from his eyes and he saw The Truth. How can anyone unsee The Truth? The Truth is so obvious that anyone who cannot see it must be brainwashed, unable to “even pretend to think outside of the circle”, suffer from ” late onset mental retardation”, or have “an asshole at both ends of the GI tract”.

This reminds me very strongly of the more extreme CAM attitudes to health. They paint a picture of a world in which eating the right foods, getting the right nutrients, thinking the right thoughts, avoiding toxins and medicines, especially vaccines, we will have perfect health. They even claim that diseases such as cancer can be cured in the same way. Why would anyone deny this? Anyone who does must want people to get sick and die, or they are being paid by Big Pharma to increase their profits.

They create an idyllic image of people in a natural state of health and well-being, and ask why anyone would want to pollute this with anything unnatural. Similarly Delysid paints a picture of human beings in a natural state of freedom and responsibility, exchanging goods and services in a free market, and asks why anyone would want to destroy this idyllic picture with a corrupt government that steals from us and imposes its will by force.

Who wouldn’t want to live in a world where perfect health and longevity were guaranteed through a healthy lifestyle?

Who wouldn’t want to live in a world where everyone voluntarily accepts personal freedom and responsibility and subscribes to a social contract, contributing willingly to a just and fair society?

The trouble is that neither the picture painted by the CAMsters nor that painted by Delysisd is rooted in reality.

We know what happens to people who don’t have decent health care: we only have to look at the developed world historically, and the developing world and uninsured sick people in the US currently. CAMsters claim that poor hygiene and poor nutrition account for these examples, that disease was declining anyway and even deny, for example, that polio is being eliminated by medical science.

They pointedly ignore the very poor health seen in the Hunza, for example, still claiming that these and other indigenous peoples in remote areas are examples of extraordinary health and longevity. They ignore examples of people living ‘in harmony with nature’, like Native Americans, who died in their thousands when exposed to a ‘harmless’ disease like measles.

We also know what happens to large numbers of people without any overarching organization to govern them: we only have to look at the developed world historically and the developing world currently (and some areas of inner cities where the police are afraid to go).

Delysid states that, “The free-market is the activity that happens when it is not being centrally planned and controlled by government”, yet we inevitably see chaos and rule by military dictatorship or organized criminals wherever such conditions arise. Delysid claims this is due to previous political systems or to religious beliefs, somehow failing to notice that every country on the planet has been influenced by previous political systems and a dominant religion.

It seems blindingly obvious to me that not all people behave as if they have personal freedom and responsibilities. Without this libertarianism fails, and since it has no means of compelling people to behave in this way I see no way it can succeed.

Those who support both these ‘world views’ fail to realize they are idealistic fantasies based on unrealistic ideas of what is possible in the real world. Both depend on ignoring swathes of history and an understanding of what happens without human inventions/interventions (whether medical or political). Both are rooted in a variety of naturalistic fallacy, claiming that humans do best when left to their own devices without interference from conventional medicine (and technology in general) in one ‘world view’, and without interference from government in the other. Both are equally deluded, in my opinion.

Delysid states that, “The free-market is the activity that happens when it is not being centrally planned and controlled by government”, yet we inevitably see chaos and rule by military dictatorship or organized criminals wherever such conditions arise.

One could make the argument that a completely free market demands a dictator or criminal overlord simply because it is so chaotic. Stability — even if it’s the wrong kind — has a very high utility for the average person.

I think that believing that people- without rules and regulations- would mostly act responsibily, is naive.

Like alt med wishful thinking about diet’s effects, libertarian wishful thinking about markets can be tested. If a government cuts back on social ( or other) spending, the results can be monitored- thus if PM David gets his cuts or if Barry O orders spending ( which then gets cut), we can see what happens in the economy. Just like we can test woo-ful theories about diets or supplements.

I like to write about concepts like ‘formal operational thought’ and ‘executive fxs” ( other stuff too, like metacognition, but I don’t usually spell it out )- here’s how developmental psych fits in here:
around adolescence, kids start thinking more hypothetically, abstractly and systematically- they can ask, “What if?” and then follow up the consequences of hypothesised changes. They are aware of combinational possibilities- which enables them to think like experimenters- if I vary A, I must keep B, C etc constant. This transformation also affects social thought, identiity and ideological leanings.

But they also- being able to abstract- become more idealistic- and, for lack of a better word- “puristic” – because they haven’t yet allowed RL testing to sully their visions of perfection- they may become religious or follow a regime to improve themselves or an extreme philosphy. By interacting with others and testing out their ideas in the world, they learn to *qualify* their rigid idealism into a model that is more reflective of reality and human nature. They are naive scientists, who get less naive eventually. They learn that they are biased observers. Sometimes other events interfere with the development of these skills.

Thus when we talk about the formal operational thought of the adolescent – who is also studying algebra, science and social sciences- which occur as he or she acquires the many abilities** inherent in executive functioning which illustrate the *beginnings* of adult thought. Fully fledged executive functioning may not kick in ( if it does, indeed, kick in at all) for another 10 years or so ( related to brain changes). Remember all of those all old stories wherein the heiress doesn’t get her money until she’s 25 or the young duke can’t marry until he’s 30? Well, those who created the rules were being realistic about human development before we had studies to show how these abilities proceed.

If our friend Delysid is relatively young, I’d say give him time. For some of the successful politicians/ writers who speak similarly, I hope that what they say is merely a way to garner votes or sell books and isn’t what they truly believe.

** judging self and others’ skills, sarcasm, control of emotions, planning, subterfuge, predicting others’ actions, assessing situations globally, etc etc etc

Shay,

Stability — even if it’s the wrong kind — has a very high utility for the average person.

Indeed – a retired criminal lawyer friend of mine was recently explaining to me that some crime has its benefits. Stability is one – the IRA did not tolerate drug dealing in Belfast (where heroin is still rare), for example, and it has been argued that the Kray twins “were guilty only of crimes against other criminals, and that the streets of the East End had been safe for women and children in their time”*. I have talked to elderly people who lived in the area who support this, claiming that burglaries were practically unknown back then.
I’m not entirely convinced, but it’s an interesting perspective.

* Spiny Norman terrified burglars, apparently 😉

I must add:
growing up involves learning to be able to see the world from the *perspective of another person* , be it purely physically ( Piaget’s youngsters) or involving people in other social positions or eras of history, diplomatically or indeed, those who may only exist in imaginary realms.

Ideas of reference occur when a person has trouble differentiating what is happening on the outside vs on the inside of his or her head.

Far from “trouble,” this can be a tremendous improvement. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” An injury to one is an injury to all. Nansen saves the cat.

Obviously, since all the world appears to swirl around us centrifugally,

The fictitious centrifugal force causes things to move away. If things seem to be swirling, an ominous state of affairs, lying flat in a ditch or looking for a convenient fig tree, i.e., staying out of the way, are traditional.*

the sufferer thinks himself its axis without understanding that each other person also experiences a similar phenomenon.

It seems that ideas of reference are more likely to coexist with not just intact boundaries, but quite rigid ones, which is part of the problem. The television can’t beam you “messages” unless they’re coming from outside. Getting all swell-headed about it is not required, but probably the path of least effort for certain personality types.

Recognizing and interpreting ideas of reference as helpful commentaries on one’s situation may not come easily if one is deeply mired in supernaturalism or monist materialism, but it’s hard to see much utility coming from any other approach.

—–
* When not an option, even Poe suggests staying loose:

“I have already described the unnatural curiosity which had taken the place of my original terrors…. I now began to watch, with a strange interest, the numerous things that floated in our company. I must have been delirious – for I even sought amusement in speculating upon the relative velocities of their several descents toward the foam below. ‘This fir tree,’ I found myself at one time saying, ‘will certainly be the next thing that takes the awful plunge and disappears’…. I no longer hesitated what to do. I resolved to lash myself securely to the water cask upon which I now held, to cut it loose from the counter, and to throw myself with it into the water.”

(W—pedia suggests that this story is mentioned in Player Piano. As it happens, I learned yesterday that Vonnegut used to play at the bar that’s now across the street from me.)

I tried to read the Fountainhead once. I quit about midway through the first chapter because it was too creeptastic and appallingly written.

Obligatory reminder:
http://xkcd.com/1049/

And yes, I agree. More long-winded than Uris, less plot than Wolfe and less believable dialogue than Ludlum ALL ROLLED INTO ONE. The only reason one would ever, ever think Rand’s books are not amongst the worst ever written is IF YOU HAVEN’T READ ANY OTHER ONES. For fuck’s sake, Rand makes Hubbard seem riveting.

Few things are more pathetic than the spiteful hatred of the mob of limousine liberals, champagne socialists, Gauche caviar, who exhale their CO2 and fart their methane while pushing their authoritarianism, worshiping the State with the ferocity of Jihadists and passivity of serfs, completely oblivious of their own ignorance and destruction they are causing to mankind.

Delysid, you still haven’t told us how your “free society” would deal with fire. As far as I can tell, everyone would burn to death, but by golly, they’d burn to death free!

I’m also curious how you’d suggest we deal with chemical, radioactive and, biohazardous waste in that completely unregulated world you’re draming of, Delysid.

Or how we’d ensure we’d remain secure in our persons and property in the absence of police forces, courts to try violators, and prisons to secure them in while hopefully rehabilitating some portion of them.

Consider your example @ 393 of how the market creates wealth, involving fish, a spear, woven huts, etc. What happens if, instead of trading the fish Narad has caught with his captial (the spear he made) for the shelter representing Orac’scapital, Narad instead uses that spear to take Orac’s hut by force?

How exactly would market forces act to either prevent that loss or to return Orac’s capital to him?

It’s possible Delysid is entertaining ideas about privatized police and fire departments. This opens up a whole new set of problems, as neither are likely to assist someone not able to afford their services. In a city with no fire codes, that would mean they wouldn’t be much help at all if a building that couldn’t afford service caught fire.

Also, I’m not wealthy, and neither are many of the commenters. We’re not the rich trying to oppress the poor, we’re the ordinary trying to avoid being oppress by the very rich.

@Gray Falcon

A fire department, court system, and sheriff would be the last functions of a government I would abolish, yet that seems to be the first thing statists cry about whenever questions the authority of the State. Look at the first things abolished by the Obama administration in the partial government shutdown- public parks, which don’t even need bureaucracy to function to begin with.

Why wouldn’t an insurance agency, in the lack of any other taxes, bring fire protection. Even in the current system in which we pay an upwards of 50% and higher of our total wealth to taxes, there are still volunteer firemen.

Police is a different issue because they enforce the laws of the State. I would abolish many of the existing laws against the State, like every single drug law.

Once again Delysid comes in here setting a bunch of strawmen on fire….always funny to see the person who decries “absolutes” arguing with nothing but absolutes….

Ever going to answer the question as to when your model society was attempted & it was successful?

Delysid, volunteer fireman don’t get a salary but I hope you’re not laboring under the delusion that they’re free. There are equipment, facility, training and liability costs.

Why wouldn’t an insurance agency, in the lack of any other taxes, bring fire protection.

It’s been tried. Competing fire companies did not always cooperate and split the money, nor did they always fairly compete to see who could arrive first. There is a reason that this was abandoned as a model.

there are still volunteer firemen

True, but they don’t buy their own equipment (by and large) or water.

I would abolish many of the existing laws against [sic] the State, like every single drug law.

Would that include the laws requiring that medicines be proven to be safe and effective before a company could make marketing claims, or the ones that require them to be made by good manufacturing processes, or the ones that require them to contain what they say they contain and not be contaminated? Or were you just thinking of the laws governing the sale of recreational chemicals?

@Lawrence

I come in setting a bunch of strawmen on fire? LMFAO I didn’t know you were so funny! You mean strawmen like “we are all gong to die in the streets and our homes are going to burn to the ground in a libertarian government?”

At least 5 differerent people attacked Ayn Rand, who despised libertarians, like she fucking matters about anything.

People in this thread got knocked out by their own libertarian strawmen.

@Shay

You aren’t even trying to undrestand the difference between force by government and voluntaryism in the market. Do you think the current system is free? People are paying for it, only they have little control over costs because it is taken from they by force from the State. We already have systems in place, like Homeowner’s Insurance, to cover such things as fire damage. I realize people like you have difficulty imagining it any way other than “if the government doesn’t do it it can’t happen because I have zero creativity or abstract thought ability,” but all you have to do is look at the current system minus the State’s role to see how it would work. It would work the same, minus the massive, incompetant, violent government bucreacracy to waste money that should go directly to fire protection.

Delysid, the fact that you would even consider abolishing the fire department, court system, and sheriff shows exactly how little you understand.

Consider the following: A building, as well as all of the others in a five-block radius are built entirely out of wood, out to the edges of their property. Also, almost none of the buildings have bothered to put in fire suppression systems or fire escapes, which the builder thought was too expensive. Many of the buildings have not bought insurance, so the insurance company will not send a fire truck out to them. Finally, a fire breaks out in one of the uninsured buildings with neither fire escape nor extinguishers. What is to prevent the whole area from turning into a singular inferno?

@Lawrence

Seriously how do you wipe your own ass? How do you buy toilet people without merchant taking all of your money? How do make any decisions on your own in the market? How are you smart enough to buy soft toilet paper and not sand paper? How do you manage to not drown in the toilet without a government bureaucrat mointoring your bathroom safety? Does a government agent come to the public housing where you live and change your diapers for you?

Are you totally dependent on government for every aspect of your life?

How do you think a free society would work? Exactly like it does now.

WITHOUT SLAVES WHO WOULD PICK THE COTTON?

Once again Delysid comes in here setting a bunch of strawmen on fire

Good thing there are plenty of volunteer firemen to available to extinguish them.

I am old enough to remember when ambulance services were provided by private enterprise in most of Canada and the US. Nobody in the field of emergency medicine or in their right mind is arguing that a return to this is a good idea.

Delysid, there are numbers besides zero and infinity. There are forms of government besides anarchy and fascism. We aren’t totally dependent on government, but it is necessary for civilization to exist. I am not speaking of abstract principles, I am talking about the real world, a world where fire and crime exist, and where deceivers will sell out the planet for a dollar. You are not demanding the wicked lose power, you are demanding the just embrace impotence.

To clarify my last comment, I am not saying everything that the government does is right, or that there are no excesses that need correcting. The fact that Delysid believes this to be the case suggests he has the maturity of a small child.

@Gray – he doesn’t seem to have a concept of anything other than his own little world – as hypothetical as it is…since he can’t point to a single instance of it having been tried and successful.

He’s just assuming that everything would work out the way he claims (despite the entirety of human history telling us otherwise), not exactly an educated fellow.

And I’ll sit back and wait for the absolutist insults to continue, absolutely….

@Gray Falcon

You just did the argument to moderation logical fallacy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation

Tell me then, what is the right amount of socialism? The amount YOU say is the right amount? Everyone who wants less socialism than you is immoral and crazy?

“Maturity of a small child.”

At least I intellect and the ability to think rationally. You are spouting off one logical fallacy after another. This is just another ad hominum attack. I would be a lot more “mature” in this debate if I was so fucking frustrated how ignorant people are being to their own ignorance.

@Lawrence

Answer my question. How do you wipe your own ass? What toilet paper do you use? Does the governmetn issue your toilet paper to you.

I demand an answer to how you wipe your own ass.

I’m not claiming to know how, in the even the government starting giving us toilet paper and wiping our asses for us, how in a free society you will wipe your ass.

I didn’t realize that my original question was going to be so hard for Delsyid to answer….insults are definitely the last refuge of the hopeless.

Tell me.

If toilet paper become socialized, then the government shut down, how would you wipe your ass?

Would it be CHAOS? Would robber barons charge exorbitant prices for toilet paper? Would gangs and warlords fight over the toilet paper industry? Would you just wipe your ass with sand paper? Or poison ivy?

Go ahead. I’m waiting for your highly educated answer.

@EVERYONE

This conversation is done for every other topic until I recieve an answer from Lawrence regarding the wiping his ass dilemma.

Delysid, you don’t have any authority to decide what topic is open. Especially when it’s obvious you have the maturity of a ten-year-old. We asked you serious questions about how your theoretical society would function in the real world. You respond with scatological insults. Do you really think you impressed anyone?

@Gray Falcon

Why don’t you answer it then. Step in for Lawrence. I’m suspicious that you are smarter than him, so why don’t you explain to me how wiping our asses would work in a free society? This issue is identical to any other dilemma being proposed.

How would [medicine] work in a free society? How would [fire protection] work in a free society? How would [wiping our own asses] work in a free society?

@Gray – people like him are never interested in a real discussion. I believe a number of very good questions were posed to Delsyid, asking him to provide at least some measure of empirical evidence to support his contention that his “worldview hypothesis” was indeed the correct one & would operate according to his descriptions – in the face of the very real challenges that societies have struggled with since the beginning of human civilization.

Since he had & has no intention of engaging in a rational discussion and has gone down the typical “troll” descent into simple insults, it’s time to ignore this particular odious individual.

But hey, I’ve annoyed him enough to become a personal target of his idiotic rants – so I guess that counts for something.

“Without slaves, who would pick the cotton?”

First, it was the ex-planters and their families. And then, when that labor was insufficient, they hired their former slaves and their families as sharecroppers.

And all were equal (but not so equal) in poverty and misery….

And as for if TP became socialized, well, there’s always other stuff to wipe oneself with, namely things like leaves, corncobs, and catalog pages. You know, things people wiped themselves with before there was TP.

Hope y’all enoyed my little foray into the history of hygiene….

I’ll get the popcorn to watch the delysid show.

Looks like to me, and to every political poll, that the Randians, the Tea Party and the Republican Party have overplayed their hand and the ACA implementation will not be delayed.

@Lawrence

I see you haven’t answered the question yet. This was a very good question posed to you.

You know toilet paper was an important commodity in the Soviet Union, right? You know that toilet paper is a problem in the non-tourist areas of Cuba?

Know you are upset about me, the only libertarian on this thread, addressing you directly, while you have over a dozen people in a mob against me? HA!

How many socialists does it take to defeat a libertarian in a debate?

Answer: I don’t know, but way more than the number of peopel who read this blog.

If you can’t tell the difference between “I don’t have enough toilet paper!” and “Somebody just cut off my arm!”, you should seriously consider psychiatric help.

@Lucario

So if toilet paper became socialized, would that mean that libertarians would be accused of wanting the people to use corncobs to wipe asses?

Because that is exactly how every other issue is being treated. Right now in the free market you can go into a grocery store and choose from about 50 brands of toilet paper in a wide range of prices and quality, whatever your butt desires. It’s not a mystery about how to wipe our ass because the market has delivered.

For some reason socialists cannot (or will not) apply this logic to other issues. If a libertarian is opposed to socialized toilet paper, in the eyes of the socialist, he must want people to wipe their ass with corncobs.

@Gray Falcon

“Somebody just cut off my arm.”

You think that counts as a rational argument, and I’m the one who needs psychiatric help?! LMFAO

You need to take a logic course.

MIT offers them for free. Isn’t the market awesome?

This thread’s getting so long, it’s getting “Unable to allocate memory for pool” errors on my computer. Time to lock?

@lilady

Because Ayn Rand and I are literally the same person. Republicans are all the same, and they are all literally Ayn Rand. The Tea Party is literally a cult that worships Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand.

Progressivism: “I hate Ayn Rand so much that I talk about her more than every libertarian and Republican combined. Also, I’ve never actually read one of her books, but I hate her because I’ve read opinion articles by other people who might have read her books.”

I’ve read (actually tried to read), Ayn Rand’s books. Did you happen to read my post about Alan Greenspan (a Randian economist), who drove the economy off the rails and has spent his years since leaving the Federal Reserve, attempting to rewrite history?

How every one of those political polls? Did you spend some time reading how your Libertarian fellow travelers…the Randians, the Tea Party and the Republicans have fared, since they tried to blackmail The President?

LOL…we’re not laughing with you, Delysid.

Wealthy international corporations pay laborers in sweat shops in Bangladesh, for example, so little they can barely afford food, much less a luxury like toilet paper*, and this in a free market.

Why would things be any different in the US without labor laws and a minimum wage, especially if there are employers like Delysid who wouldn’t tolerate trade unions?

* Don’t believe me? Check out prices in Bangladesh and see how far the minimum wage of $40 per month gets you.

@lilday

I despise Alan Greenspan. He was the worst chairman of the Fed (besides Bernanke) by far in the last 40 years. He kept interest rates way too low for too long. What does this have anything to do with Ayn Rand?

You have no idea what you are talking about. I imagine you are laughing at me because smart people sound like crazy people to dumb people.

I imagine you are laughing at me because smart people sound like crazy people to dumb people.

I imagine all sorts of things, but I try not to make the mistake of thinking that they are necessarily true.

Delysid, I live in the country. We have a volunteer FD. Let me explain to you how that works.

The Village of A, with no organic firefighting capability has three choices.

1). Build a firehouse, buy equipment, and hire sufficient full-time firefighters to provide 24/7 coverage for the village. This is paid for by taxes levied on A residents.

2). Contract the service out to a neighboring jurisdiction that does have a fire department. This is paid for by taxes levied on A residents.

3). Build a firehouse, purchase equipment, and train enough volunteer firefighters to be able to respond 24/7. Provide the volunteers with training, insurance, and equipment. This is paid for by taxes levied on A residents.

Our village, like most small country jurisdictions, has option #3. Our volunteer firefighters are not “free.” They’re cheaper than the other two alternatives, but they still have to be paid. Most jurisdictions including ours offer to cover missed work time if an alarm goes off in the middle of somebody’s work-day.

Also, anyone who thinks homeowners’ insurance is a replacement for firefighters hasn’t thought that one out. Insurance covers your house when it’s gone.

Firefighters try to stop your house from going.

@Krebiozen

Bangladesh is not in the current state because of wealthy corporations. That is a ridiculous confirmation bias and misapplying cause and effect.

Corporations help 3rd world countries. If Western corproations did not build factories, then what would those people have? Where would they work? Would they be better off? Give me a break. You are taking a snapshot and time and going “capitalism caused this.”

No. Again, socialists never blame socialism for the problems it causes. Everytime the state is the problem statists call for a more powerful state.

Capitalism is bringing those countries out of poverty. Bangladesh has been ruled by socialists since 1949 with the Awami League.

@Krebiozen

Bangladesh is not in the current state because of wealthy corporations. That is a ridiculous confirmation bias and misapplying cause and effect.

Corporations help 3rd world countries. If Western corproations did not build factories, then what would those people have? Where would they work? Would they be better off? Give me a break. You are taking a snapshot and time and going “capitalism caused this.”

No. Again, socialists never blame socialism for the problems it causes. Everytime the state is the problem statists call for a more powerful state.

Capitalism is bringing those countries out of poverty. Bangladesh has been ruled by socialists since 1949 with the Awami League.

@Mewens

You mean like how everyone here is debating me? Rapidly switching from fires, to Alan Greenspan and Ayn Rand, to Bangladesh?

Socialists are the fraternal twins of medicine quacks. This blog alone has provided enough evidence of this for this to be called “Delysid’s law.”

@EVERYONE

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/venezuela-orders-temporary-takeover-toilet-paper-factory-002437055.html

I noticed that nobody has bother to answer my question about how you all would wipe your asses in the event of a privatization after a socialization of toilet paper.

The socialist paradise of Venezuela seems to be screwing up the ass wiping pretty badly. Anybody care to come to their defense?

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/venezuela-orders-temporary-takeover-toilet-paper-factory-002437055.html

Ha ha ha, you have heard of it, then. Do you see it at most sites you go to? I bet you do, right? You probably see plenty of socialists everywhere, too, right?

But I’ll offer my own law: There’s a direct relationship between a forum arguer’s zealousness and the likelihood that he or she will be mistaken for a common forum troll. (I won’t name that law after myself, though.)

@Mewens

How can I troll a blog in which I have never commented before in a thread that was literally about me by answering questions that asked directly to me?

Please I would love to hear the answer to this, as you are not the first person in this thread to accuse me of being a troll.

And that’s exactly the point I’m trying to make – you’re constantly reading into other’s words, and you’re constantly responding to arguments others aren’t making.

No one begrudges you your beliefs; they’re irritated by how you’re putting words in their mouths and how you refuse to own up to your factual inaccuracies. I didn’t say you were a troll – though I did strongly imply that your behavior was indistinguishable from a troll’s to an outside observer.

If you can’t see how it might generate ill will by calling everyone who disagrees with you a “socialist,” when you respond to disagreement with insults, when you insist on making black-or-white statements, you’re to look like a fool. (Perfect example: Wiping your rear has neither the moral nor the economic implications that fire safety has. When you make that comparison, everyone else has to decide if you’re stupid or if you’re playing stupid to get a rise out of them.)

You had, in fact, flounced off this blog, Delysid. Why don’t you stick the flounce?

What type of anarchist are you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy

Why don’t you just leave and go to Somalia where you won’t have to be bothered with the social contract to pay your dues (taxes), for the infrastructure, municipal, State and Federal services you enjoy.

You do know, don’t you, that Federal aid to universities, as well as those low cost student loans that you have, will suffer once the Libertarians, the Randians, The Tea Party and the Republicans force the United States into defaulting on the National debt on October 17th? (Your student loan interest rates are pegged to Treasury Notes and T-Bills).

There’s always pulling up rugs and pulling up toilets for you to earn some money.

I’m either a minarchist for a nightwatchman state or an anarcho-capitalist, depending on my mood. personally I think that a Nightwatchman State and stateless society become functionally indistinguishable from each other once a state becomes small enough and that a population of a certain size will always insist on some type of state, kind of like a limit in calculus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism

Delysid,
I have been presenting to you some of the real world problems that led me to abandon libertarianism, when I was about 25. I am curious to see if you have any solutions to them that are compatible with libertarianism.

Bangladesh is not in the current state because of wealthy corporations. That is a ridiculous confirmation bias and misapplying cause and effect.

How do you manage to misunderstand so much, so profoundly? I wasn’t suggesting that Bangladesh is in its current state because of wealthy corporations. I was giving an example of a labor market that is poorly controlled, for various reasons, and that has a very low minimum wage. Large corporations (more accurately their suppliers) take advantage of this cheap labor, because they can. Why else do you think Walmart, Gap and H&M, for example, source their goods there?

Even when consumers put pressure on them to behave more ethically, corporations don’t always respond as one might expect. H&M, for example, has responded to criticism by calling for the Bangladeshi government to raise the minimum wage, which kind of misses the point.

I was asking you what would stop these same wealthy corporations from exploiting people in a libertarian USA. Why would they offer Americans in a libertarian USA that had no trade unions and no minimum wage a higher wage than they currently offer Bangladeshis? It’s a simple question.

Corporations help 3rd world countries. If Western corproations did not build factories, then what would those people have? Where would they work? Would they be better off? Give me a break. You are taking a snapshot and time and going “capitalism caused this.”

That’s just a straw man, I’m not claiming that capitalism caused anything. In fact I agree that poorer countries are probably better off because of corporations. That doesn’t mean that I think it is ethical for them to pay a wage that it is impossible to live on, just so people in the US and Europe can buy cheap clothing or food. Did you see how much a 1 bedroom flat, a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk costs compared to the $40 per month minimum wage in Bangladesh?

No. Again, socialists never blame socialism for the problems it causes. Everytime the state is the problem statists call for a more powerful state.

Another straw man. I am asking you how you think having no minimum wage, no laws stipulating pay and conditions for workers and no trade unions would improve anything anywhere, not just in Bangladesh. I would love to see a solution that didn’t involve state intervention, but I can’t find one.

How would a free market lead to a fair wage, when we can look at present day examples of exploitation wherever employers can get away with it? Even if some employers are ethical, how can they compete with those that aren’t and that can offer cheaper goods produced by slave labor in seat shops? I don’t get it, but I assume that you must have an answer, since you have spent so much time reading and thinking about this.

Capitalism is bringing those countries out of poverty.

Good, let’s hope they succeed before Bangladesh disappears underwater due to AGW.

Bangladesh has been ruled by socialists since 1949 with the Awami League.

I’m pretty sure Bangladesh’s problems have more to do with history and natural resources than the kind of government they have.

Delysid, try to argue with us, not the people you think we are. Many of us aren’t socialists, we just consider your ideas to be unworkable. I know you think the only people who would disagree with you are socialists, but you’re dead wrong. If your ideas were so self-evident, why has nobody spoken in your defense?

Delysid, could you at least attempt to explain how your unregulated free market society would deal with the problems posed by the generation of chemical, radioactive and bio-hazardous waste?

#707 It’s you who keeps switching tracks. Admittedly you are being provided many of them by the numerous people who are arguing with you, but you do decide which to respond to.

Frankly, I thought this “discussion” was over the moment you refused to respond to my questions. Generally that’s all people need to know before they stop bothering to have a rational discussion.

Delysid @703:

Bangladesh is not in the current state because of wealthy corporations.

That’s not our point. Our point is, without government to enforce laws, what’s stopping the corporations from exploiting their employees even more than they are now? What’s stopping them from polluting the environment?
I’m going to repeat what others have said. You seem to think that corporations and people will behave ethically in the absence of government. Bring some evidence that the strong won’t exploit the weak.

@Gray Falcon

Also interesting to note, Adam Smith argued in favor of living wages.

As someone once said on Pharyngula when someone quoted Adam Smith saying something that was contrary to glibertarianism “Adam Smith it like the bible you are supposed to worship it, not read it.” Free market fundamentalists are like religious fundamentalists.

Delysid, try to argue with us, not the people you think we are. Many of us aren’t socialists, we just consider your ideas to be unworkable.

A socialist is defined as someone who disagrees with Delysid.

When a large natural gas reservoir containing a lot of liquid hydrocarbons in a vapour phase was discovered in Turner Valley in the 20s, the unregulated freed market response was to flare the gas and sell the liquids until the Provincial Government stepped in to force the oil companies to conserve the gas. I would like Delysid to explain why such regulation decreased wealth produced from this retrograde condensate reservoir.

Any one thinks private business are bastions of efficiency has never worked for one or is blinded by ideology.

I will wager 100 quatloos that Delysid is a Mensa member.

“Bangladesh is not in the current state because of wealthy corporations.”

As if on cue…from my Firefox browser’s “Latest Headlines”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24453165

8 October 2013 Last updated at 21:27 ET

Bangladesh clothing factory hit by deadly fire

Emily Thomas reports on the latest disaster in Bangladesh’s garment factories

At least nine people have been killed in a fire at a clothing factory near the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, emergency officials say.

Local media said about 50 people had been hurt in the fire, which broke out late on Tuesday in Gazipur.

It was feared the number of people killed could rise.

Safety standards in Bangladesh’s garment factories are notoriously poor. More than 1,100 people died in April when a factory outside Dhaka collapsed.

Another 2,500 people were injured in the disaster in the Ashulia district on the outskirts of the capital, where most of the clothing industry is based.

Last November, 112 workers were killed in a fire at another clothes factory in the area.

The cause of the latest fire was not immediately clear, but reports said it broke out at a knitting section of Aswad Composite Mills.

A local official at the scene said that fire fighters had been unable to recover any bodies.

One man came to the site to find his uncle told the BBC that he had not been able to find him.

“I found out that the fire started from a [textile] machine,” he said. “When the silencer of the machine exploded, the fire spread and the factory caught fire.

“Immediately after the fire many people ran out of the factory but a few could not get out.”

Reports quoted officials saying water shortages and a lack of nearby fire stations had allowed the blaze to escalate and continue for several hours.

Factory Director Emdad Hossain told the Daily Star in Bangladesh that 170 workers were on duty on the two floors when the fire broke out.

“Almost all of them managed to come out of the building,” he said.

Mr Hossain suffered injuries while rushing out of the building.

Although most members of a reported workforce of 3,000 had left the building for the day, those killed are thought to have been working overtime.

District administrator Dilruba Khanom said that emergency services were waiting until sunrise to complete their search of the factory. They warned that the number of casualties could rise.

“They have managed to control the fire in most parts of the factory, but the warehouse is still burning,” he said. “The bodies are charred beyond recognition.”

Police officer Ameer Hossain told the Daily Star that nine bodies had been recovered. Other accounts put the toll at 10.

Clothing makes up around three-quarters of Bangladesh’s total exports, and the factory collapse prompted protests and calls for improved safety measures.

Dozens of international retailers agreed a plan last July to conduct inspections at factories from which their goods were sourced.

Related Stories

Factory workers locked in on shifts
22 SEPTEMBER 2013, BUSINESS

Dhaka factory collapse missing ‘not dead’
16 SEPTEMBER 2013, MAGAZINE

US retail in Bangladesh safety move
10 JULY 2013, BUSINESS

Retailers to check Bangladesh units
08 JULY 2013, BUSINESS

Dhaka collapse probe uncovers abuses
23 MAY 2013, ASIA

@Khani

I have tried to answer your questions directly. From what I understand you are asking me ” what would it take to change my mind about libertarianism?” And “what would it take me to change my mind about AGW?”

Those are are 2 different answers. The AGW part I answered in another comment.

You won’t change my mind about libertarianism with “evidence” because I don’t view politics as a science. I wish you would please read Human Action to understand why I think this way.

Even if socialism worked perfectly for every single person (which of course it does not) I would still oppose it on ethical grounds.

Delysid, you have been asked multiple times to produce evidence that corporations and people will behave ethically in a libertarian society. So far, you have failed to do this.
I now invoke the 3 failures to answer rule. If a person posts 3 times without answering a fair question posed to him/her, we can conclude that s/he has no answer to it.

@julian Frost

Can you prove to me that governement officials are going to behave ethically? Why is the burden on me that every person, or every business, or every corporation is going to behave ethically? I made no such claim.

If a corporation (which is a product of government FYI) is supposed to behave ethically, is not the same burden on the agents of the state? What is stopping them? Democracy? What if 51% vote to enslave the 49%? Then what? You do not have to buy the products of a business if you do not agree. You have to participate by the laws of the State even if you disagee. That is the fundamental difference. A business (or corporation) only has power over you if the State declares so.

@Delysid:

Why is the burden on me that every person, or every business, or every corporation is going to behave ethically in the absence of government?

FTFY. Because you are arguing that libertarianism is viable. We have given you examples that show it isn’t, now you must bring your evidence.

If a corporation (which is a product of government FYI) is supposed to behave ethically, is not the same burden on the agents of the state? What is stopping them?

Checks and balances. If a government employee is corrupt, incompetent or malicious, you can go to his/her supervisor and complain. If that doesn’t work, you can approach the courts for relief. In one example, the provincial superintendent of education maliciously excluded a company from a contract. The company won a ruling and is getting R4 million in compensation.

What if 51% vote to enslave the 49%? Then what?

A little thing called the Constitution would stop that. Also, I’ll turn that around on you. What if the most powerful 5% in a libertarian state decide to enslave the 95%? Then what?

You do not have to buy the products of a business if you do not agree. You have to participate by the laws of the State even if you disagee.

Um, there’s a little thing called emigration. If you don’t like the laws of the land, you can move somewhere else like Somalia. Also, you have the option to take actions to get laws with which you disagree rescinded. Remember the Civil Rights Movement? The fight against apartheid?
You appear to be confusing government with dictatorship.

@Julian – because to a person like Delsyid, government = dictatorship 100% of the time, because he deals in absolutes, remember?

Why is the burden on me that every person, or every business, or every corporation is going to behave ethically? I made no such claim.

No one expects you to prove any such thing, since it is quite obvious that not everyone does behave ethically. I want to know how such unethical behavior would be dealt with in a libertarian society. What would stop employers from paying their workers the very least they can get away with? What would make them provide decent pay and conditions for their workers?

It seems clear to me that some level of unemployment is unavoidable in an industrialized nation, especially with increasing automation. How would the unemployed be fed, clothed and housed in a libertarian society? Would they depend on charity like they do in developing world?

In a libertarian society there wouldn’t be any welfare because that would require taxation, and employers would be allowed to refuse to employ trade union members, so a worker couldn’t withdraw his labor in protest at unfair pay and conditions without the danger of starvation. It seems to me that nothing would prevent conditions for workers from rapidly deteriorating into similar conditions to those seen in the early 19th century.

Is that what really you would like to see happen? If not, what do you think would happen and why?

@Kreb – the book “Jennifer Government” pretty much sums up what would probably occur in such a “Libertarian Paradise.”

A very scary scenario, to say the least….

When you get down to it, tyranny and anarchy are two sides of the same coin. In the USSR, government-run manufacturing was essentially an unregulated monopoly, as the regulators and the business were one and the same. After Somalia broke down, the ones with all the weapons set the rules. The idea that anarcho-capitalism would lead to a free society is absurd at best.

Can you prove to me that governement officials are going to behave ethically?

No. That’s exactly the point we’ve been trying to make: we cannot expect all anyone–government officials, CFO’s, small business owners, etc., to uniformly behave ethically. Some will always see an advantage in behaving unethically.

That’s precisely why government checks and balances, regulating industries, creating judicial systems capable of punishing violators and allowing those harmed to recover damages, etc., are necessary.

Because we fully expect some people to behave badly when they feel it’s in there own interest..

So, given that in even the presence of strong regulation and a judicial systems capable of punishing offenders people will still behave unethically, what credible reason is there to believe they’d behave any better, rather than worse, in the absence of either?

I believe that most people do behave ethically – based on their own system of ethics. This may not coincide with what you mean by ethics.

@Krebiozen

Government is not a charity. By it’s nature it cannot be a charity. Government is force. In order to give to one it must take by force from another. The American Founding Fathers scoffed at the idea of a positive government in which a government proactively gives things because they knew history and knew the Greece City-States were such a disaster. The American government was set up to protect negative rights.

Politicians long ago realized they could secure power and support by stealing from others and giving to them. It’s a savage, primitive system.

Once again we are back to the pure conjecture and fear-mongering of what happens when God the government does not redistribute wealth. “Jennifer government!”

@Krebiozen

I am suspicious that you have never read any libertarian philosophy beyond that one example you gave, as you keep repeating the same myths and fallacies over and over again that are repeated on progressive blogs.

Read Anarchy, State, and Utopia for an in depth discussion of positive versus negative rights. Robert Nozick demolishes the ethics of the barbaric system of force required for redistribution of wealth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy,_State,_and_Utopia

@Gray Falcon

Tyranny and anarchy are two sides of the same coin?

No. Liberty and authoritarianism are opposite.

Somalia was ravaged by a socialist dictator for decades. Still today Western powers heavily arm various insurgent political group. How do you think the warlords got the money and weapons in the first place? Magic? The United States government and other western governments armed them. The example of Somalia as being anarchy is could not be any more ridiculous.

Also, Somalia has a government.

It’s like I’m talking to parrots who just keep squawking Somalia over and over again with no understanding of what they are talking about.

“SOMALIA. CHECKMATE.” God dammit come on at least attempt to think critically.

The American Founding Fathers scoffed at the idea of a positive government in which a government proactively gives things because they knew history and knew the Greece City-States were such a disaster. The American government was set up to protect negative rights.

Do you have any evidence of this?

To remind you, they are

How would your unregulated free market society would deal with the problems posed by the generation of chemical, radioactive and bio-hazardous waste?

Given that in even the presence of government ‘force’ (i.e., strong regulation and a judicial system capable of punishing offenders) we observe that people will still behave unethically, what credible evidence suggests people would behave any better in its absence?

@JGC – don’t you understand, they’ll have their freedom!!!! Isn’t that enough? (certainly is for Delsyid, I guess)

Delysid, unlike you, I can look up information on the Net:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somalia
Somalia recently re-established a government. As a result, piracy has fallen significantly. And you are not advocating liberty, you are demanding anarchy. Liberty and anarchy are not the same things.

I am reminded of a scene from “Kenichi the Mightiest Disciple” where a delinquent gang attempted to recruit him with the leader talking about how he was seeking his own freedom. Kenichi’s response: “If what you call freedom involves hurting other people… that isn’t freedom, that’s tyranny!”

You won’t change my mind about libertarianism with “evidence” because I don’t view politics as a science.

Given what you’ve demonstrated on the latter front, this doesn’t appear to be any great loss.

I wish you would please read Human Action to understand why I think this way.

Inasmuch as the comical supernaturalism of “Praxeology” purports to be an axiomatic deductive system and you have the temerity to drop howlers such as “you need to take a logic course,” why aren’t you simply presenting formal proofs?

I am suspicious that you have never read any libertarian philosophy beyond that one example you gave, as you keep repeating the same myths and fallacies over and over again that are repeated on progressive blogs.

As I have told you, I read a lot of libertarian and anarchist literature in my youth. Like you I accepted that government comes from the barrel of a gun, that it is an extension of the robber barons enslaving the masses etc.. It was taking a degree in social anthropology including a module on economic anthropology that made me start asking myself the kinds of questions I have been asking you.

You keep dismissing my questions and describing them as “myths and fallacies”. They are not, they are questions, and you and the libertarian literature I have read have no coherent answers to them.

why aren’t you simply presenting formal proofs?

Delysid wouldn’t know a proof if one smacked him in the face. He’s super great at plagiarizing wikipedia though!

Once again we are back to the pure conjecture and fear-mongering of what happens when God the government does not redistribute wealth.

We have evidence as to what happens when it does. You have failed to provide any answers on what happens when it doesn’t. You admit (at least in my case) that you have no answer, and then you want us to accept on faith that a completely free market works.

Delysid has admitted that even if it could be proven that libertarianism made everyone except himself both poor and miserable, and socialism made us all wealthy and happy, he would still advocate libertarianism.

I don’t think you have to be a strict utilitarian to see that this is a ridiculous privileging of abstractions over human beings, and not arguable with. He believes it because he read a book.

Delysid, have you read Goldman or Kropotkin?

Given that in even the presence of government ‘force’ (i.e., strong regulation and a judicial system capable of punishing offenders) we observe that people will still behave unethically, what credible evidence suggests people would behave any better in its absence?

The immutable and infallible “theorems” of “Praxeology” are, like other scientific laws, value-free. It therefore is unable to generate statements about ethics.

I wish that one of my one of my sceptical brothers and sisters would draw attention to Delysid’s continued choice to use loaded language to describe opponents ( e.g. socialists, the g-d government) whilst preporting to himself represent ‘liberty’, etc.

I-btw- have work here.

@Denice – I’ve commented above that Delsyid proscribes absolutist positions to his opponents – which is a huge burning strawman, since no one here has articulated that view (except himself, of course).

@Denice: I think I mentioned it once or twice, but there’s still more to be said. He seems to be under the delusion that simply calling his ideal society a “free society” makes it so. If one calls a suitcase a duck, it will not quack and fly away. Likewise, calling a society where a few wealthy have power over a great many poor and middle class a “free society” does not change the fact that it is functionally identical to feudalism.

It’s funny revisiting this stuff again. What strikes me is that libertarians (and other laissez faire capitalists) seem to think that capitalism and the concept of property are somehow ‘natural’. In ‘Anarchy, State, and Utopia’ Nozick talks of people’s rights in ‘a state of nature’, a concept taken from Locke.

It seems to me that ‘a state of nature’ knows nothing about property, and that any rights we have are those that we agree between ourselves, unless you believe in a God. Nozick declares that people have rights by fiat – more argument by assertion.

So much of this is a description of how people would like the world to be, with no thought at all given to how these ideas would work out in practice.

So basically none of you are going to read any libertarian economics or philosophy? Is this correct? You want me to spoon-feed it to you in comments to you can immediately reject it and mock me without being burdened with critical thinking? All I see is excuses from all of you. Narad won’t read Human Action because he read a Wikipedia criticism of praxealogy. Krebiozen won’t read Anarchy, State, and Utopia because of some stupid irrelevant ramblings about religion and natural rights. Denise or whoever it was couldn’t even handlle Ayn Rand, the Harry Potter of libertarianism.

You are all perfect examples of anti-intellectualism. WE ALREADY KNOW STATISM IS THE ANSWER THEREFORE WE DON’T HAVE TO CONSIDER ANY OTHER WAY.

None of you want to learn anything. You just won’t to wallow in ignorance, repeat fallacies, and mock me. I can’t explain

SOMALIA!!!!

Delysid wouldn’t know a proof if one smacked him in the face. He’s super great at plagiarizing wikipedia though!

One might note that the DAT doesn’t include an analytical section, as the GRE at least used to (i.e., a version of the bulk of the LSAT). In fact, I had been meaning to get around to this, but it went kind of stale:

Oh you got an 800 on the GRE? You must be so good at arithmetic and spelling tests!

The DAT does have a standard verbal section. I take the characterization as “spelling tests” as prima facie evidence that D. fared poorly on it,* and by extension, I’d guess the same for the quantitative.

One thing that’s amazing is that, according to the “DAT User’s Manual,” in 1999, 2004, and 2009, the percentages of test takers who successfully answered all 40 questions were 0.0%, 0.3%, and 0.1%, respectively. If the “DAT Question of the Day” is even close to representative, this is appalling.

The general chemistry numbers are quite scary as well, and somewhat perplexing when compared with the O-chem results, which are sometimes higher by bin. Anyway, back to verbal comprehension, from the same post:

Dentists do more surgery than most physicians. I give nerve blocks every day. We don’t have the same prescribing privileges because, to quote you, “it’s a matter of state law.” I see you are as ignorant about dentistry as you are about economics.

Again, a failure. What I was referring to was not prescribing privileges, but use of the title “doctor.” This year’s Florida Senate Bill 612 would have encompassed dentists.

D. was also predictably wide of the mark on prescribing privileges per se. Dentists are not generally limited in any detailed fashion by statute but rather by the usual course of dentistry itself. If it’s defensible, anything goes.

As for the putatively impressive nature of “giv[ing] nerve blocks every day,” I count 13 possible targets, and I doubt that he has all of them under his belt. A quick scan gives 16 for podiatrists, but I might be guilty of double-counting, and some involve redirecting within a single stick.

* Consonant with babbling about HIPAA while complaining about “nativigat[ing] the mountains of paperwork I have to do just to treat a Medicaid patient.” Why a dental student would be tasked with this is left as a marginally amusing exercise for the reader.

How about the Ethics of Liberty by Rothbard then?

I already have a copy, and I downloaded ‘Anarchy, State, and Utopia’ earlier. I do like to revisit stuff I haven’t thought about for a while from time to time, just in case I missed something. This is all philosophical speculation, as the introduction to ‘The Ethics of LIberty’ states of Nozick:

Rather, Nozick’s libertarianism was, and claimed to be, no more than just an interesting thought. He did not mean to do any real harm to the ideas of his socialist opponents. He only wanted to throw an interesting idea into the democratic open-ended intellectual debate, while everything real, tangible, and physical could remain unchanged and everyone could go on with his life and thoughts as before.

Even Rothbard describes libertarianism as, “a philosophy seeking a policy”, and like Novick he defines ethics and rights by assertion and then argues from them using logic. If you invent your premises you can make any argument logical.

As I stated earlier, this is all about how the writer thinks things should be, with little if any thought about how we can make it a reality. Liberty is the most important thing in libertarianism, almost to the point of becoming a fetish, even when it appears to be the liberty to starve or to be brutalized or coerced. For example, according to Walter Block, Nozick supports voluntary slavery, which doesn’t sound like the sort of society I want to live in.

“Dentists do more surgery than most physicians. I give nerve blocks every day. We don’t have the same prescribing privileges because, to quote you, “it’s a matter of state law.” I see you are as ignorant about dentistry as you are about economics.”

O bullshit! My dentist gave me an inferior alveolar nerve block last Thursday and it wasn’t for oral surgery:

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/82622-overview

Who the hell wants to give you the right to prescribe the same class of drugs as a medical doctor? You don’t “believe” that DEA rules apply to you.

Tick tock, tick tock…only eight more days ’til your fellow travelers refuse to raise the debt limit…and the interest on your education loans goes sky high.

When you apply for *food stamps*, just remember that the posters here paid your dues in the form of personal Income Taxes, Tidy Bowl Man.

* You cannot use the food stamp benefit to buy tobacco or liquor.

Narad won’t read Human Action because he read a Wikipedia criticism of praxealogy.

As usual, you fare poorly by ascribing your own habits to others. I haven’t even looked at the W—pedia entry, as it happens. None of this is particularly relevant to your pathetic bitching that it’s necessary to slog through a thousand-page book before one is eligible to point out such things as your cratering signal-to-noise ratio.

If you’re so fυcking enamored of it, perhaps you should try, oh, I dunno, actually deploying your profound knowledge of the work rather than waving frantically in its general fυcking direction.

Dammit Narad. How did you get your last comment through moderation?

I used a mild word (bullsh!t), and I’m stuck in moderation purdah.

Liberty is the most important thing in libertarianism

Taking “liberty” to refer to a condition within some sort of external order, I’d amend that to “freedom,” especially in the instant case, where the former is either meaningless or a magically emergent property due to the latter.

How did you get your last comment through moderation?

There are more code points in Unicode, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of by your prudish filters.

Narad,

Taking “liberty” to refer to a condition within some sort of external order, I’d amend that to “freedom,” especially in the instant case, where the former is either meaningless or a magically emergent property due to the latter.

Exactly. Freedom from what, precisely? It amuses me that every tract about libertarianism I have read still insists on at least some rules, mostly about defending private property (which appears to be their sine qua non), and punishing those who steal it (so much for no coercion). Given that, it becomes an argument about which rules are best, as in any political discussion. “My rules are better than your rules”. “My rules lead to the magical emergence of liberty, through the action of an ‘invisible hand’.”

The reason this amuses me is that it seems to me to be the concept of private property, trade and profit that really seems to screw up idyllic human relations in simple societies, not government per se. These are not ‘natural’ concepts, they are invented ideas. In Delysid’s imaginary example of an island where people freely trade fish for huts, it is the possibility of someone stealing fish or huts that makes government of some kind seem necessary. When there is no private property, theft is impossible and government is unnecessary.

I’m not arguing for a society without private property, I quite like living in a society where such ideas exists, but at least we have examples of societies in which this seems to work. My favorites are the Baka pygmies of Central Africa. I thoroughly recommend Colin Turnbull’s books about them, and I have an album of them singing somewhere – great yodeling. Other hunter gatherer societies are very similar; they have little if any private property and everything is shared. It’s worth quoting from that last link:

Economists argue that sharing has an economically rational basis. The person we share our catch with today may feed us tomorrow when our luck or skill fails. In this view, sharing is a kind of insurance policy that rationally spreads the risk of not having anything to eat. Sharing in hunter-gatherer cultures, however, is much more profound than this. In many cultures at least, there is no connection between who produces and who receives the economic output.

According to Woodburn, for example, some members of the Hadza do virtually no work their entire lives. Many Hadza men gamble with spear points, and many are reluctant to hunt for fear of damaging their gambling “chips,” yet these men continue to get their full share of the game animals killed. Although “freeloading” is always a potential problem in Lill cultures, disdain for those not engaged in productive activity is evidently a culturally specific emotion.

In every case I have looked at, and this was something I took an interest in when I studied economic anthropology, this kind of arrangement falls apart as soon as the concept of property and profits enters people’s consciousness. The utopian society in which private property, trade and profit exist isn’t the ‘natural’ state of mankind, it appears to be an unattainable fantasy, since the very existence of trade and profit leads to inequality, exploitation and all the negative things that libertarians blame on government.

I should perhaps clarify that last part. I don’t believe we could have developed the kind of technology we have, and the ability to (more or less) feed as many people as we do without capitalism. What I’m suggesting is that capitalism leads to the problems (not least cities and huge populations) that require some form of government to solve them. Libertarians seem to think these problems are caused by government and that they would disappear if we abolished or drastically reduced the size of government. I think they have it backwards.

Now this may be crass of me but I often wonder if their cherished ‘freedom’ boils down to freedom from taxes. Government and the services it provides cost money thus the need for revenue.

A milder form would replace progressive taxes with a flat tax or sales tax thus “equalising” the burden.
Or so they tell us.

It’s worth quoting from that last link:

Economists argue that sharing has an economically rational basis….

Of course, the fundamental “postulate” of “Praxeology,” which taken to be unassailably true outside of the “system,” thus essentially breaking the whole thing, is that all action is rational. This makes D.’s repeated accusations of “irrationality” in these comments all the more curious, as the concept does not Praxeologically apply. Action is either rational or “a reactive response to stimuli on the part of bodily organs and instincts which cannot be controlled by the volition of the person concerned” (which seems to force strict mind-body dualism, as well).

It’s almost as though he didn’t read it very carefully.

#722 If you want people here to read books, are you willing to read books they suggest as well? Any quid pro quo here?

@Narad

So now you are attacking the profession of dentistry? Maybe if you spent more time researching facts and less time autofellatiating you would have discovered that the DAT does in fact contain a quantitative reasoning section. I took the DAT, MCAT, and GRE, and the DAT was by far the most difficult and GRE by far the easiest. I’m extremely amused at how proud of yourself of you are about that test. It’s basically retaking the SAT. Congratulations on your amazing accomplishment. lol

How cute that you linked to a government bill to decide if a dentist is a doctor or not. Your belief in the church of government is so entrenched that you cannot even help looking to the government as the final authority. “I am Narad, high priest of statism, and I will only think what my government overlords tell me to think!”

You are desperate to smear me in any way you can. Narad, I understand what you are going through. I suspect that you are unable to differentiate your individuality from the collectivist mindset of statism, and it must feel like that by opposing government I am really opposing you.

Although most adults develop to become independent beings, some people retain infant-like physical and/or psychological dependence on the government bosom. Some people prefer the safety of the womb over the dangers and challenges of the external world.

It’s kind of adorable Narad. Baby penguins can be imprinted to think a sock-puppet is their parent, and you have been indoctrinated to trust that politicians are your mother, father, and god.

The State is your Shepherd, Narard.

#722 Also, if you will not change your mind under any circumstance whatsoever, this is not an argument.

This is people proselytizing each other, or at least, perhaps, one person proselytizing a lot of people who actually were interested in an argument.

I don’t like being proselytized, whether it’s an ardent Baptist, an ardent Creationist, an ardent Atheist, an ardent Socialist, an ardent Libertarian, or whatever.

If other people are interested in hearing a plea from a preacher, they can certainly continue here, but really, expecting them to have some sort of amazing conversion experience like you did is a bit much.

You want me to spoon-feed it to you in comments to you can immediately reject it and mock me without being burdened with critical thinking?

No I don’t, actually. I simply want the answers to a couple of questions which I’ve asked you repeatedly:

How would your unregulated free market society would deal with the problems posed by the generation of chemical, radioactive and bio-hazardous waste?

Given that in even the presence of government ‘force’ (i.e., strong regulation and a judicial system capable of punishing offenders) we observe that people will still behave unethically, what credible evidence suggests people would behave any better in its absence?

So now you are attacking the profession of dentistry? Maybe if you spent more time researching facts and less time autofellatiating you would have discovered that the DAT does in fact contain a quantitative reasoning section.

I said analytical, dumbass. Did you not notice that I then went on to specifically comment on the DAT quantitative section? Your execrable reading comprehension (and, apparently, faulty memory, but I’ll return to that when I finish a spot of work) once again blazes forth.

It’s more than freedom from taxes–recall the persistent demand to be free from regulations as well–no OSHA, no FDA, etc. It’s freedom from anything that gets in the way of maximizing their personal wealth at the expense of others.

Mock us all you want, Delysid, but let me ask you something. If a gang of thugs were going around town beating up people for fun, would it be wrong to stop them? They aren’t committing property crimes, and arresting them would be using force to impede their freedom. Do you simply lie down and enjoy it?

@Khani

Isn’t this entire blog dedicated to proselytizing?

I am willing to read some statist literature. But you have to keep in mind that I am bombarded by it everywhere. On the other hand a person has to actively seek out libertarian philosophy. I didn’t hear the word ‘libertarian’ until I was 21 years old.

I’ve literally heard every single argument every person has given in this thread over and over again. Statist propaganda is ubiquitous. I read a lot of it on my own just to stay sharp (just like I read Natural News). For a while I was reading Conscience of a Liberal daily, and it was like self-flagellation.

#773 No, it’s not dedicated to proselytizing. It’s dedicated to exposing poor arguments in bad science.

And yours have been exposed.

Delysid, the reason you’ve heard all those arguments over and over again is because they’re valid. You have made no effort to debunk them, you simply insinuated that the ones making the arguments have an agenda, a technique regularly applied by the USSR.

“If a gang of thugs were going around town beating up people for fun, would it be wrong to stop them? ”

Most libertarians I know are not pacifists. Self-defense is a natural right.

It’s ironic you say this in defense of the government. The government is the worst gang there is. They take whatever they damn well please. Even the mafia doesn’t confiscate anywhere near as much property as governments.

Government: Let’s protect ourselves from people robbing us by giving a group of people a legal monopoly on robbing us.

What brilliant logic.

Also, this is slightly off-topic, but it’s a perspective that is not expressed often enough.

When should you shoot a cop? “That question, even without an answer, makes most law-abiding tax payers go into major conniptions.”

Delysid: Acting in self-defense is still using force to impose your views on another. Isn’t it more right just to let them do what they want?

More seriously, say you manage to fend off one attacker. What happens when the rest decide to pull out knives and cut you into pieces? You decide to pull out a gun and shoot one, they pull out theirs and shoot you more. After they finish you, a bunch of your friends strike in retaliation. Then their relatives get involved to deal with your friends. Soon an entire city is at war. What’s to prevent this?

@Gray Falcon

Every country in the world has governments, and every country in the world has gangs murdering each other. Why hasn’t government solved this problem?

Personally I think everyone in the world should take more psychedelic drugs.

Delysid: I’m not talking about gangs, I’m talking about a total breakdown of civilization. With no legal recourse, revenge killings are the only available option. What’s to prevent all-out war?

@Gray Falcon

Again, your argument is conjecture.

My evidence is the reality of ongoing government military conflicts (wars).

Okay, no more talking directly to Delysid. First of all, he’s one of those who thinks an imperfect solution is as bad as no solution at all. Yes, war, crime, and corruption still exist, but removing the means of keeping them under control is madness itself. What’s more, somehow, he thinks direct examples are conjecture. A person of average intelligence would realize Hammurabi wrote his laws for a reason.

Direct evidence? LOL The Code of Hammurabi is direct evidence?

About Albania…

“not even the law can help them.”

Then what do you want me to say? I don’t know how to solve the blood feuds. How do YOU solve it? This is a ridiculous question you are asking me.

Direct evidence? LOL The Code of Hammurabi is direct evidence?

About Albania…

“not even the law can help them.”

Then what do you want me to say? I don’t know how to solve the blood feuds. How do YOU solve it? This is a ridiculous question you are asking me.

How to debate a libertarian: reference more and obscure events, preferably in cultures completely opposite to Western culture and in ancient history and blame it on libertarians.

This is why statists bring up Somalia like it is self-explanatory.

Now Gray Falcon is citing the Code of Hammurabi and Albanian Blood feuds?

Personally I think everyone in the world should take more psychedelic drugs.

They don’t seem to have done you much good. What do you think would happen if your suggestion (or, rather, what you presumably intended to say) were to come true?

If Delysid bothered to read the article past the headline, he’d realize the reason the law wasn’t able to help was due to a lack of interest. When Communism was in charge, they were quite a bit less tolerant of feuds.

I get it…now. The amateurish science blogger likes to hang with the uneducated Libertarians, so that he can impress them with his intellectual prowess. Too bad that doesn’t work for the soon- to-be-doctor, here.

http://www.dailypaul.com/300419/a-state-court-system-is-intrinsically-unfair-and-fallible-regardless-of-the-vaccine-court

A State court system is intrinsically unfair and fallible regardless of the “Vaccine Court.”
Submitted by Delysid on Thu, 09/26/2013 – 00:33
in

Health
DP Original
Ohio

There is a lot of controversy regarding the Vaccine Court. Let me break it down from my perspective as a staunch libertarian (anarcho-capitalist) and soon-to-be doctor (lifelong student of science). Arguments against the no-fault liability system for vaccines produced by pharmaceutical companies are ubiquitous on the Daily Paul, so I will be the lonely devil’s advocate with defense of the vaccine court…

Soon-to-be-doctor ???

I have to take issue with something Krebiozen said earlier.

The utopian society in which private property, trade and profit exist isn’t the ‘natural’ state of mankind, it appears to be an unattainable fantasy, since the very existence of trade and profit leads to inequality, exploitation and all the negative things that libertarians blame on government.

It’s not the existence of trade or profit that cause inequality and exploitation, it’s human nature. Communism tried to remove the “market” in the hopes that a workers’ paradise would follow. It failed dismally. The communists got things backwards: humans aren’t corrupt because the market is slanted; the market is slanted because humans are fallible.
Having said that, that also argues that Delysid’s libertarian paradise will rapidly become a dystopia.

Now, where was I? Oh, yes.

So now you are attacking the profession of dentistry?

No, I’m mocking your seemingly limitless pretensions.

I took the DAT, MCAT, and GRE, and the DAT was by far the most difficult and GRE by far the easiest.

Odd that you didn’t mention it when the subject was ripe. Anything else? GMAT? ASVAB? OAT? TOEFL? In any event, you’ll have to excuse me if the fact that you have twice managed to err in characterizing the GRE rather strongly suggests that you’re not familiar with it. Your demonstrated shortcomings in the verbal and general reasoning realms don’t help.

As for claiming that the DAT was “by far” harder than the MCAT, perhaps you would like to reconcile this with your self-reported poorer performance on the latter. And no, I don’t believe that ‘S’ for a second.

I’m extremely amused at how proud of yourself of you are about that test.

You seem to forget that I only mentioned it because you elected to flog test scores in support of the risible delusion that you “guarantee that [you] have stronger science credentials than most of you here,” as well as the fact that I concluded the observation by pointing out what they actually measure, which most certainly isn’t what you were attempting to use them for.

It’s basically retaking the SAT. Congratulations on your amazing accomplishment.

You once again forget that I didn’t take the same GRE that you putatively did. The popular wisdom seems to be that the verbal section is more difficult, with the quantitative being roughly the same, which the inventory plainly reveals to be more difficult than the DAT quantitative section. Selah.

lol

How cute that you linked to a government bill to decide if a dentist is a doctor or not.

That was the entire point of the original observation, genius. I see that it continues to elude you.

Your belief in the church of government is so entrenched that you cannot even help looking to the government as the final authority. “I am Narad, high priest of statism, and I will only think what my government overlords tell me to think!”

If you didn’t have the reasoning skills of a loofah, it might have occurred to you that I haven’t said a thing about politics anywhere in these comments. You have precisely nothing from which to infer my opinions about the proper role of government. Of course, given the abject poverty of your rhetorical armamentarium, it’s no surprise that you are forced to resort to leaping to baseless conclusions over and over again.

You are desperate to smear me in any way you can.

“Desperate”? The buffet is overflowing. Moreover, why would I be “desperate” when you fail at every turn? It’s nothing but idle observation at this point.

Narad, I understand what you are going through. I suspect that you are unable to differentiate your individuality from the collectivist mindset of statism, and it must feel like that by opposing government I am really opposing you.

This is good; it’s turning into DJT. The rest of your commentary is simply more of the same haplessness that has been well and duly noted by others.

I should perhaps clarify that last part. I don’t believe we could have developed the kind of technology we have, and the ability to (more or less) feed as many people as we do without capitalism.

It’s almost enough to make one wonder just how things are supposed to scale once such fetters as patent protection as swept away.

Julian Frost,

It’s not the existence of trade or profit that cause inequality and exploitation, it’s human nature.

I should really have included ‘property’ with ‘trade’ and ‘profit’. Anyway, I’m not sure I agree with you; in hunter gatherer cultures there is little if any sign of inequality or exploitation, because everything is shared. They have no concept of accumulating food and then using it to trade for other goods or services. It seems to be the combination of human nature and the concepts of private property, trade and especially profit that lead to inequality and exploitation.

In the communist USSR they still had property, money, trade and profit. It was only the means of production that were owned collectively, not what was produced. Marxism has its own form of magical thinking, that says that capitalism is a necessary precursor of the ideal communist state. I remember reading about Marxists encouraging a feudal society to become a capitalist one because that was one step closer to communism (it was somewhere in South America IIIRC), which is almost as nutty as the idea of ‘the invisible hand’.

I wish I still had my economic anthropology notes, which I lost in a move a while ago. I read a fascinating anthropological monograph about an agricultural society that shared all labor, and put all the food they gathered in a communal store. This had gone on for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years, with violence, theft and crime being virtually unknown*.

Then some young men returned from visiting a distant city with ideas about creating their own food stores, and trading food for other goods and services in times of scarcity. This led to a rapid breakdown of this society within a generation, with violent crime and theft appearing for the first time. There are other similar examples I came across, but this was the best documented, as the anthropologist was living with these people while this happened.

So, I think it is more accurate to say that human nature plus concepts of trade, personal property and profit lead to inequality and exploitation, unless we have some form of regulation. I suppose it comes down to people’s relative tolerance of inequality, exploitation and regulation.

* I do recognize that this sounds suspiciously like a Golden Age myth, but in this case the anthropologist himself witnessed the ‘fall from grace’. Then again, Margaret Mead apparently got the wrong end of the stick in Samoa, so who knows?

@Narad

Kiss my ass. It was a 31R apparently. I misremembered because I don’t give a crap. My ego isn’t tied to my test scores and GPA. You might need to autofellatio to comfort yourself, but I don’t and I’m sick of you.

Those are my MCAT scores. I hope it gets your rocks off.

VR10 PS09 R BS12 31R

Another thing to note is Delysid’s racism. Somehow, he thinks that because of our superior culture, we wouldn’t go the path of other anarchies. Apparently, he thinks nobody outside the government has ever committed a crime or acted foolishly.

Then what do you want me to say? I don’t know how to solve the blood feuds.

And you also don’t seem to know how to solve the problem of ensuring industries safely dispose of chemical, radioactive and biological waste.

Or how to ensure factory conditions in those industries are safe for workers, that the owners of those factories doen’t exploit child labor does, that their workers are paid a living wage,etc.

And you don’t know how to ensure that building codes are in place and adhered to such that individual builders/homeowners do not put entire communities at risk of fire.

Or how to create and maintain effective firefighting organizations to respond to fires that do occur.
Or how to ensure the safety, purity and efficacy of drugs
pharmaceutical companies make and pharmacists sell.

And to go all the way back to one of the first questions your were asked, you have no solution to how we may take care of the most vulnerable members of our society.

it’s become obvious you can’t offer any solutions to any problems at all. You just keep repeating catch phrases like “Government is force” and “All government is bad–that isn’t debatable” and crying about the personal freedoms you say you’re being denied–which as far as I can tell is the freedom to screw over anyone you want as long as “I get mine!’

Meanwhile, governments such as our democratic republic, on the other hand, do offer solutions to these problems. OSHA for workplace safety, FDA for drug safety,building codes, fire departments, SNAP programs, etc. Police forces, criminal justice and judicial systems–all government institutions–have been an effective solution to the problem of blood feuds you don’t seem to have the first idea how to address.

If you want anyone to accept your dream of a free market society as something desirable, you’re going to have to tell us how it would do better than what’s in place now.

So let’s go back to the central question: given that a small but significant subset of people will behave unethically and exploit others, pollute the environment, make false claims regarding products such as drugs, etc., even in the presence of strong regulations and judical systems which will punish that behavior, how would your free market society lacking deter such behavior at least as well, if not better, than the current systems in place?

– btw- this thread is getting so long it takes forever to load-

At any rate, Delysid appears to be talking about extremes- an idealised Free Place vs Socialistan. However in the real world, there is a spectrum of possibilities where the amount of regulation varies as well other conditions** that would delineate their inclusion along the liberty axis.

Someone- other than me- could make up a list that rated places so we could compare outcomes**- for example, Sweden might place high on regulation etc for Europe compared with Moldava. In the US, NY might be more regulated etc than Wyoming. Examples are purely for illustrative purposes and my own guesses.

Thus we can bring the debate to measurable effects that we can compare rather than talking about possibilities.

Simple question: would anyone prefer to live in Mexico vs Canada? I know, I know, regulation isn’t the only issue.

But I hope you can see where I’m going.

** D may choose his own variables and measures of outcome.

@JBC

It seems that the Federal Government has compounded the nuclear waste situation with senseless regulation (as it compounds every problem.) A simple Google search brought up many arguments and idea for market-based waste disposal, first of all by transferring responsibility from the tax-payers to the nuclear plants themselves.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/thf_media/2008/pdf/bg2149.pdf

“it’s become obvious you can’t offer any solutions to any problems at all”

I don’t claim to have the answers to everything. That is the beauty of the market. Other people will.

“Meanwhile, governments such as our democratic republic, on the other hand, do offer solutions to these problems”

Here we are stuck in the eternal loop again. Because you can’t come up with anythign doesn’t mean the government is the best way to do it. It’s the eternal circular argument of the government is the alpha and the omega.

How come nobody here is criticizing the governmetn for doing a horrible job? Why is it that all the government has to do is make promises? This is the big deceit. Policitians tell people they will solve the problems and never recieve scrutiny for failing to do it. “But the market doesn’t make empty promises to me!”

It’s like statists prefer to be manipulated lied to. The ends to not justify the means and the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

This Lawrence Reed quote could not be any more relevant to this thread.

“It constantly amazes me that defenders of the free market are expected to offer certainty and perfection while government has only to make promises and express good intentions. Many times, for instance, I’ve heard people say, “A free market in education is a bad idea because some child somewhere might fall through the cracks,” even though in today’s government school, millions of children are falling through the cracks every day.”

People are demanding about how the market would solve nuclear waste dilemmas and Albanian family blood feuds, but nobody is acknowledging the failure of governmetnt

As long as the government does something that is better than doing nothing you say! If a patient is dying with cancer and we beat them over the head with a sledge hammer in a shitty attempt to cure them, at least we tried right!?

Even worse the government is screwing up with our money. But statists will never blame the politicians for stealing their money and making problems worse. All it takes is some charming speeches, a handsome politician, and a law with a helpful sounding name like The Nuclear Waste Disposal Act and total loyalty is given to the government. It doesn’t matter if the government is a corrupt, horrible failure, at least they create a fantasy!

@ Khani: I made the mistake by opening up D’s “killing a cop” YouTube video. If you recall, D made the first references to his scores on graduate school exams.

Delysid:

A simple Google search brought up many arguments and idea for market-based waste disposal, first of all by transferring responsibility from the tax-payers to the nuclear plants themselves.

And how would we ensure that the companies handled waste disposal, and did so properly and safely? We’d need a way to monitor and police them to make sure they weren’t just dumping it somewhere, and a way to punish offending companies. Oh wait.

Because you can’t come up with anythign doesn’t mean the government is the best way to do it.

Yet another straw man. Who or what should be responsible for monitoring and enforcing public safety?

How come nobody here is criticizing the governmetn for doing a horrible job?

Are you serious? We do criticise. Just because we think the government is the best way to do certain things doesn’t mean we view it as perfect.

Policitians tell people they will solve the problems and never recieve scrutiny for failing to do it.

Yes they do. Otherwise incumbents would never be voted out. Bush 1, Carter, Ford. All 1-term presidents.

“But the market doesn’t make empty promises to me!”

LOLOLOLOLOLOL! You can NOT be serious! How many products fail to live up to the promises made by the manufacturers?

I don’t claim to have the answers to everything. That is the beauty of the market. Other people will.

But you don’t appear to have the answers to anything. Doesn’t a clever chap like you have any idea of how the market would deal with the real life problems I and others have asked about?

@Kreb – I’m still waiting for his response to where his “hypothesis” has been tried in the real world & was successful….really doesn’t seem to be that hard of a question to answer….

I don’t claim to have the answers to everything. That is the beauty of the market. Other people will

It seems to me that those other people have already come up with solutions, which was to regulate that free market, create authorities like OSHA, the FDA, to devise and enforce building codes, to institute a legal minimum wage, to levy taxes which are used to finance public utilities, fire departments, etc.

Because you can’t come up with anythign doesn’t mean the government is the best way to do it.

I’m not arguing that government is necessarily the best way to do it. I’m noting that it can and has done it, while you haven’t offered any evidence that a free market system could do it all, or provide a historical example of a free market society that even did it badly.

How come nobody here is criticizing the government for doing a horrible job?

I do criticize the government when I feel it isn’t doing a good enough job–however, I don’t we’d agree on where it falls short. For example, I expect you think the FDA constitutes failure because it impedes free market forces and actively regulates drugs and other therapies, while I feel it fails because it doesn’t have the authority to regulate supplements nor the legal teeth needed to put quacks like Burzynski out of business.

Policitians tell people they will solve the problems and never recieve scrutiny for failing to do it.

No scrutiny–they’re elected for life? Journalists and watchdog froups don’t monitor and report on their voting records, the failures to realize their campaign promises, etc.? What a strange world you live in–does it get lonely?

The ends to not justify the means and the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I’d agree–that’s why I oppose to means which take the form of sacrificing the well-being of others (especially the most vulnerable members of our society) by eliminating mandated miminum wages, compulsory building codes, prohibition of child labor, drug safety laws, etc., to achieve the ends of eliminating taxation and the creation of an unregulated free market.

@JGC – an “unregulated free market” which has no historical evidence that is it “better or more efficient” than the system we have now….does the government do everything? Of course not – should it, again, of course not….but when you look at areas of the economy that were completely unregulated – like derivatives trading, for example, you see exactly where that gets you – falling off a fiscal cliff.

The 2008 economic collapse did not occur because of too much regulation, it happened because no one had any idea what this “free market” was doing or what effect it would have on the rest of the economy…..in fact, it was the very “under and un-regulated policies” pushed by the Fed Chairman at the time that made the situation much worse than it should have been.

Not exactly a glowing recommendation for this “libertarian utopia” that Delsyid claims it would be…..

Delysid, I note that way above you stated:

Believe it or not I do support government involvement in pollution as far as it involves property rights violations. A factory doesn’t have the right to pollute on the land of someone else. I don’t support hairbrained schemes like carbon taxes, but factories should not be able to just dump chemical wastes into rivers.

What criteria did you use to decide that this issue is one in which government should have authority, instead of just the free market?

Some relevant lines from “The Big Departure” episode of Dragnet:

Sergeant Joe Friday: I don’t know, maybe part of it’s the fact that you’re in a hurry. You’ve grown up on instant orange juice. Flip a dial – instant entertainment. Dial seven digits – instant communication. Turn a key – push a pedal – instant transportation. Flash a card – instant money. Shove in a problem – push a few buttons – instant answers. But some problems you can’t get quick answers for, no matter how much you want them. We took a little boy into Central Receiving Hospital yesterday; he’s four years old. He weighs eight-and-a-half pounds. His parents just hadn’t bothered to feed him. Now give me a fast answer to that one; one that’ll stop that from ever happening again. And if you can’t settle that one, how about the 55,000 Americans who’ll die on the highway this year? That’s nearly six or seven times the number that’ll get killed in Vietnam. Why aren’t you up in arms about that? Or is dying in a car somehow moral? Show me how to wipe out prejudice. I’ll settle for the prejudices you have inside yourselves. Show me how to get rid of the unlimited capacity for human beings to make themselves believe they’re somehow right – and justified – in stealing from somebody, or hurting somebody, and you’ll just about put this place here out of business!
Officer Bill Gannon: Don’t think we’re telling you to lose your ideals or your sense of outrage. They’re the only way things ever get done. And there’s a lot more that still needs doing. And we hope you’ll tackle it. You don’t have to do anything dramatic like coming up with a better country. You can find enough to keep you busy right here. In the meantime, don’t break things up in the name of progress or crack a placard stick over someone’s head to make him see the light. Be careful of his rights. Because your property and your person and your rights aren’t any better than his. And the next time you may be the one to get it. We remember a man who killed six million people, and called it social improvement.
Sergeant Joe Friday: Don’t try to build a new country. Make this one work. It has for over four hundred years; and by the world’s standards, that’s hardly more than yesterday.

Policitians tell people they will solve the problems and never recieve scrutiny for failing to do it

Which is why three of the last five governors of Illinois are in jail.

You could make that an argument that government is naturally crooked, or you can make that an argument that there are protocols in place, in this country at least, to monitor and punish illegal activity.

(How did you do so well on all those tests when you can’t spell?)

It seems that the Federal Government has compounded the nuclear waste situation with senseless regulation (as it compounds every problem.)

Oh, I can’t wait to see what citation might be offered to back that one up…

Other people will.

Yes, the government. See, it’s a never ending cycle. We replace the government with libertarian principle and then the free market select a player to ensure radioactive waste is disposed safely and he become part of our government. But now, we’re dealing with 244 895 peoples for the government with each having its own business.

How much taxes do we pay to these free market government?

Alain

Believe it or not I do support government involvement in pollution as far as it involves property rights violations.

So instead of “All government is bad” you’re position hs now become “Some government is necessary”? I think we’ve made some small progress…

It is fortunate that the mistake was caught before more damage was caused, but the FDA overreacted and thalidomide was blocked from potential uses for years.

The FDA did not over-react: it reacted appropriately, which is why the US did not undergo the Thalidomide crisis other nations suffered in the late 1950’s/early 1960’s.

And it’s not that it was ‘blocked from other potential uses’ but that no additional indications were identified and validated, and that other competing treatments for thalidomide’s initial indications (as a sedative, tranquilizer and antiemetic) were available which exhibited equivalent efficacy and far better safety profiles.

But as early as 1964 thalidomide was being investigated for other indications, such as ENL, a complication of Hansen’s disease (aka leprosy). More recently it’s been FDA approved for use in combination with dexamethasone to treat multiple myeloma.

Free-markets are NOT unregulated. This claim just demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of what the market is.

The free-market means not regulated by a government monopoly. Three are still forces that regulate in a market. These are market regulations.In medicine, for instance, there are boards that uphold standards of quality that are seperated from the State. This is market regulation.

Someone no doubt will say “markets can’t be trusted to self-regulate,” and this person will no doubt ignore the fact that they are trusting a governmetn monopoly to self-regulate.

How can government be trusted to to self-regulate? By voting? LMFAO.

Delysid,

first, to whom are you answering and two, which are these board and finally, what’s to prevent a state medical board from incorporating and then provide its services for a fee (and to whom?)

Alain

@Alain

What’s wrong with charging a fee? If a market governing board spends time and effort making sure that only the highest quality medicine, why shouldn’t they charge a fee for their service? You don’t have to do business with them. The government on the otherhand taxes you and makes you pay whether you want it or not.

For an example of market regulation look at the Better Business Bureau.

@Everyone demanding for an example of how the markets work. Here is one example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Business_Bureau

To answer my question, there is the FAAP who fail to police Drs. Jay Gordon and Bob Sears even after our own Dr. Chris Hickie dropped his FAAP membership in protest. Considering that the FAAP is paid for by its member, I fail to see how it could have the mandate to protect for the population at large.

Alain

What’s wrong with charging a fee?

bad question, there are fees that I accept and a tax is a fee but I think you are shoving words in my mouth and from your premise, it sound like the government employee should incorporate and provide their services for a fee (and remember, I accept that they charge a fee in their current form, it’s called a tax). We could end up with a governing body of countless state and federal employees with competition and alliances. I see the point but why is that different from the actual package?

Alain

@Alain

Well then it’s time to start a new governing board that rejects quackery if it continues. Ophthalmologists were getting screwed by the American Board of Ophthalmology so a few hundred of them (including Rand Paul) formed a competitor National Board of Ophthalmology.

Personally I am not a huge fan of the ADA because of its stance on public water fluoridation (I’m not anti-fluoride but anti-mass medication) and stance on the ACA. I think its time for some healthy competition with a science-based medicine free-market approach.

I think its time for some healthy competition with a science-based medicine free-market approach.

If the approach is free-market, what keeps it science-based?

More precisely, do I buy health insurance packaged with the armed forces fee or can I buy it alone. Is there a congregation of packages I need and at the base, what exactly do I need under a libertarian government?

Alain

Delysid,

Basic business sense is that cutting the middleman (the politician) end up wasting a lot of time to figure out the providers of various insurances that I need to ask: are you willing to pay your lawyer at least 10 000$ per year to review each and every 180 different insurance contracts you need in order to have your basic living condition (from snow removal up to health insurance) fulfilled?

Alain

Ophthalmologists were getting screwed by the American Board of Ophthalmology so a few hundred of them (including Rand Paul) formed a competitor National Board of Ophthalmology.

How does it fare for public protection? Do they police their members?

Alain

Perhaps the most important question remaining to be answered. The permanently unemployable, where do they draw their salaries? Is there an insurance for which parents can pay in case their baby has a severe disability that will provide a basic monthly allowance for their child once it reach majority?

Alain

Kiss my ass.

Sorry, I don’t know where it’s been.

It was a 31R apparently. I misremembered because I don’t give a crap.

You know, ‘P’ kind of looks like ‘R’. Perhaps you’ve also “misremembered” drawing in the extra stroke. As for your not “giv[ing] a crap,” I will once again remind you that this was one of the legs of the stool upon which your self-assessed superior “science credentials” rested.

My ego isn’t tied to my test scores and GPA.

Yah. Of course, given that you’re apparently also wandering around misrepresenting yourself as a “soon-to-be doctor,” it’s pretty clear that your “ego”—a term that, like “wealth,” you almost certainly are unable to provide any coherent definition of—is very much “tied to” shiny symbols.

This sort of thing in fact appears to be more or less what glues together your persona should anyone bother to poke it with a stick to see what happens. You are semiotically challenged, wandering around some sort of gloamy cognitive landscape that you fancy yourself to have metaphysically charted in painstaking detail.

What you don’t understand, and the reason that psychedelics are sadly wasted on you, is that this is all in your head. The moment you try to deploy the paranoiac road atlas in normal company, the rectification of names drops on you like a 16 ton weight. Profound slogans governing the universe turn out to have no identifiable referents. Invocations of magic names and words fail to function, and when tasked, you can’t even explain what they’re supposed to do or how they’re supposed to apply.

You might need to autofellatio to comfort yourself, but I don’t and I’m sick of you.

It’s not my fault that you’re not exactly flying off the shelves in the marketplace of ideas, kid, or that you’re poorly equipped to deal with people observing that you’re full of shıt when you are, in fact, full of shıt. For someone who proclaims to have Found the Truth in a putatively apodictic fever dream that declares “anteriority and consequence are essential concepts of praxeological reasoning,” you seem to have quite the penchant for pretending that your own lapses, no matter how comically exaggerated, never existed.

@Narad – good catch. The BBB is notorious for not following up on complaints & basically being a lion with no teeth…not exactly the best example….

I am a soon-to-be doctor. I didn’t say “physician.”

@Narad

Did you have your eyes closed pretentiously as you typed this? Is a condescending, superfluous vocabulary a sexual stimulation for you?

I’m not a gambler, but I’d bet a small wager that your pompous online persona is compensation for your life inadequacies. I’m suspicious you are an underemployed neckbeard, a Paul Finch of the American Pie series.

I know your type. Miserable wretches like you infest academia. Fortunately for me I encounter people like you far more often through the anonymity of the internet than in the real world.

@Shay

I’m not ashamed at all to have chosen dentistry. I’d much rather be a dentist than a physician, especially in the current nightmare political environment.

My issue is that Narad is a douche. Don’t confuse that with self-loathing.

An intelligent person’s response to someone using words he doesn’t understand: Use a dictionary.

Delysid’s response to someone using words he doesn’t understand: Engage in the vilest insults possible.

Here’s a hint: Intelligence isn’t simply a matter of numbers and scores on tests.

But why do you insist on calling yourself a soon to be doctor when that choice of words is misleading? How does Narad figure into that?

Your expressed your fundamental objection to government @ 207 as “Government is force. Government intervention is force. I fail to see how your ‘proposed market regulation boards’areo not also equal force, nor how market board intervention is not also force.

Unless, of course they lack the ability/authority to intervene and compel adherence to regulation.

In which case, what good are they? Are they just a free market incarnation of Yelp or Angie’s list?

My issue is that Narad is a douche.

For observing that you’re a poseur? What are your exact quibbles? You can’t tolerate having factual errors publicly corrected over and over until it finally dawns on you that you’re making a fool of yourself and have to pretend that it never happened? Or being taken to task for engaging in little more than prattle punctuated with tantrums? Being unable to produce a single content-bearing remark about the underpinnings of the top of your “must read” list? What happened to “personal responsibility for one’s own actions”?

What, exactly, would constitute not “being a douche” here in your meticulously constructed, everything-interconnecting “worldview”? Is this, at long last, a token that you can actually define?

Delysid @816:

The free-market means not regulated by a government monopoly.

“government monopoly”? You’re now just throwing out phrases without understanding their meaning.
@818:

What’s wrong with charging a fee? If a market governing board spends time and effort making sure that only the highest quality medicine, why shouldn’t they charge a fee for their service?

Firstly, that’s a big “if”. Secondly, ever heard the saying “the one who pays the piper calls the tune”?
Here’s a scenario. Suppose there’s a dominant, non-government board to set standards of training in medicine. Suppose your board starts getting “sponsored” by a supplier of medical equipment. That board then “encourages” registered members to only use that supplier. Doctors who don’t start having all sorts of “problems” with their licenses.
Your answer may be “well, set up another board”, but you’re acting against a dominant player in the market which makes it damn near impossible to succeed. In private enterprise, dominant players have often tried and succeeded in strangling new entrants.
There is a reason we have checks and balances, antitrust laws and government authorities.

Oh for cripes sake, which entity does D. think monitors and invesigates the stock markets? Do you want Lloyd Blankfein from Goldman Sachs or Jamie Dimon from JP Morgan sending in their guys to run the SEC?

http://www.sec.gov/

Who does D. think monitors airplane, train and other public conveyances safety? Do you want the lawyers, the PR people and stewardesses from Boeing supervising airline crashes? Isn’t it far better to have aeronautical engineers and retired pilots supervisor the removal and analyses of big jet wreckages?

http://www.ntsb.gov/

Why does AoA make a BFD about an agency head at the FDA, who is a doctor and vaccine researcher opting for a late life career as an exec. at a pharmaceutical company?

Should we insist that Merck think about Dan Olmsted or David Kirby, who have no science or immunology educations or backgrounds, and who crapped up, and who crapped on, research projects…as contenders for highly placed positions at Merck’s R&D vaccine division?

@lilady

Finally someone one agrees with me! You are referring of course to a phenomenon called regulatory capture in which the government is used as a weapon against competitors. This is called “crony capitalism,” an unfortunate term because the concept is a failure of government and not the markets.

I do not want people like Tim Gietner of Goldman Sachs as Sec. of Treasury.

Hopefully you are smart enough to not fall for the fallacy of “government only fails because the wrong people were thre! Government works when the right people are in charge!”

Because this would ignore that the institution of government itself is a failure in regulatory authority regardless of who is in charge.

Delysid, there’s something important you need to hear. Stop being an asshole, it’s not going to help. So far, you’ve been immature, dishonest, spiteful, petty, and judgmental, and none of that has helped your case at all. I have no doubt people have abandoned libertarianism just so they wouldn’t have to associate with you. I hope for your sake you never take that kind of attitude in dental school, because if you do, it wouldn’t matter if you were the best dentist on the planet, you’d never pass. You constantly argue with people who only exist in your mind, causing casual viewers to wonder about your sanity. Nobody here has said that the support the current government completely, that there are no bad laws, or that corruption doesn’t exist. They simply pointed out you haven’t provided a solution to any of those problems. All you’ve given us is an assurance that we should have faith in the free market. Unless you start calling down fire from the sky or the equivalent, we’re not going to put that much faith in your words. Simply put, being an asshole will not get you anywhere.

@Gray – I’ve never understood how an individual could think that derogatory comments and blanket assertions would convince anyone of the validity of their opinion – all it does is lower the perception of their intelligence and turn people off from the discussion…..you’re right, being an asshole never did anyone any favors….perhaps he’ll learn that some day.

Because this would ignore that the institution of government itself is a failure in regulatory authority regardless of who is in charge.

This is just another entirely unsupported assertion of personal opinion.

Why what evidence demonstrates government must always fail regardless of who is in charge?

What evidence demonstrates that a free market where the regulatory oversight now carried out by government agencies such as the FDA,OSHA, and the SEC is instead carried out by the ” private governing bodies and boards” you advocate must instead always succeed regardless of who is in charge?

Others suggested that your idealized free market society would unlitimately result in a return to a feudalistic society. I’m beginning to think that’s exactly what you’d consider ideal, complete with a return to an associated guild system modeled on the Hanseatic League.

Gray Falcon,

My solution is to abolish the government (or the vast majority of it.) I have offered solutions and I want other people to have the opportunity to offer solutions. It seems as people are asking the question “but without central planning how are we going to have central planning?”

I live my life by my voluntaryist ethical code. I practice what I preach.

Look at the ACA. It’s 2800 pages of bureaucratic misery. I want that bill repealed, along with the HMO Act of 1973, EMTALA, HIPAA, Medicare parts A-D, and so on. But how are we going to have health care without the govenrment bureaucracy?

Well I’m doing my part. I’m literally treating patients with my bare hands (well gloved hands). What’s everyone else doing?

Also I might be an asshole, but I’m still right.

I wonder what his definition of “government failure” is, since there are numerous instances where the government (and governments in general) have been hugely successful……

Again, he seems to have nothing to argue except absolutes….

Except you’ve given us no reason to believe that your alternatives would work, since you can’t point to a single instance where this has occurred & it has been successful….

Delysid, do you know what the population of the United States of America is? Over three hundred million. A law meant to deal with that many cases is going to be complicated by necessity. Again, please stop arguing with the people in your head.

Interesting side note: In the Discworld series, the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork set up a deal with the local organized crime. They were given legitimate status, allowed a certain amount of robbery over a year, and were required to maintain their monopoly on crime. Take note that being given legitimate status also gave the Patrician access to their names and addresses.

@Gray Falcon

Why are so many negative examples completely fictional?

“If you want to undrestand a libertarian society read Jennifer Government. Or Discworld. Or play that stupid video game that takes place after an Ayn Rand apocalypse.”

@Delsyid – without DARPA, where would the Internet be today?

Oh, and why are fictional examples being used? Because you’ve given us no “real” examples as to where this has been tried and succeeded, right?

My solution is to abolish the government (or the vast majority of it.)

What problem does that solution address, other then the existence of a governemnt in the first place? Be specific. It certainly doesn’t address the problem of corruption, as you’ve offered no evidence that corruption wouldn’t be as if not more widespread once government has been abolished.

I have offered solutions and I want other people to have the opportunity to offer solutions.

I haven’t seen you offer solutions beyond privatizing the functions govenment now provides, without offering any evidence wahtsoever that:

a) private agencies would perform as well if not better than the existing government ones

b) that the individuals running the private agencies would be less prone to self-interest and corruption than the existing government ones

c) that market forces would be as if not more effective at deterring corruption in private agencies than the current system of checks and balances, judicial oversight and ability to remove corrupt polticians and appointed individuals from office already is

and of course

d) provide any historical example where this ‘solution’ has worked in practice

I live my life by my voluntaryist ethical code. I practice what I preach.

So do the Crips, the Bloods, the Aryan Nation, all the 1-per center motorcycle gangs, the Medellin cartel, etc. Voluntaryist ethical codes aren’t a recipe for a successful and equitable society.

Look at the ACA. It’s 2800 pages of bureaucratic misery. I want that bill repealed, along with the HMO Act of 1973, EMTALA, HIPAA, Medicare parts A-D, and so on. But how are we going to have health care without the govenrment bureaucracy

Well I’m doing my part. I’m literally treating patients with my bare hands (well gloved hands).

So your solution is to replace a law that’s extended health care to millions of citizens who previously were uncovered, allowed all children under 26 to remain covered by their parent’s health care insurance, that requires insurers provide coverage for individuals with pre-existing conditions and prohibits them from dropping individuals once they become ill or injured is one man electing to voluntarily treat patients with his own goved hands? Really?

Also I might be an asshole, but I’m still right.

To paraphrase Buckaroo Banzai, that’s “Yes on one and no on two.”

@Delysid: We have brought up real examples. Every time we did so, you dismissed them by proclaiming that their culture is different from America’s. Of course, that could simply mean that in a culture as individualistic as ours, things could be that much worse off.

Albanian blood feuds are not the fault of liberterianism. Give me a break. That might be the dumbest argument on the entire thread (and that is saying something).

By the way, the Discworld example is not an example of libertarianism, just the opposite, in fact. Libertarians would simply have let the Thieves’ Guild run rampant. The Patrician keeps them under a very tight regulatory leash, and they keep a close watch on unlicensed crime. Most people just pay the thieves up front, knowing they have a strict limit on what they can take in a year. Most of the money the Guild takes from wealthy people, knowing that Guild will keep an eye out for outside criminals, which usually ends up in the hands of smaller merchants and taverns, stimulating the city economy. It’s an arrangement that works out well for everyone, save for the occasional unlicensed criminal found floating down the river face-first.

We never said blood feuds were the fault of libertarianism, we said you have no means of dealing with them. I’m not putting blind faith in the free market to provide a solution, the free market in not God. At least the government is a known entity which can be replaced as needed.

Delysid:

I have explained and demolished your demands of “name a real world example of libertarianism” over and over again.

You have? Which comments? Please link to them because I must have missed them.

Albanian blood feuds are not the fault of liberterianism.

We’re not saying that they are, we’re asking you to show us how a libertarian society would substantially prevent them from happening.

have explained and demolished your demands of “name a real world example of libertarianism” over and over again.

Not that I’ve seen, but perhaps I missed it. Could you identify by number exactly in which posts where you’ve done so?

Albanian blood feuds are not the fault of liberterianism.

No one has said that Albanian blood feuds were the fault of libertarianism. We have noted that your proposed free market libertarian society offers no viable solution to the problem of such between groups, while the current system providing for public police agencies, an established criminal justice system, state and federal prisons, etc., does.

The best example Delysid’s given involved countries that have more liberal drug policies than the US. And that doesn’t show that his anarchic system is better than democracy, given that those governments simply have different policies, usually involving mandatory treatment instead of arrest. In other words, his examples are the same as everything else he gives: He reads the part he wants to read, and tosses out the rest.

@JGC – yes, I would like to see those explanations myself, since I don’t believe we’ve seen any from Delsyid….

As addlepated as Delsyid has continually proven to be, I do have to note with approval how quickly Delsyid noted (and apologized for) posting on the wrong thread.

Still waiting for a citation on all that excess government regulation of nuclear waste, though… 🙂

One last question Delysid.
How would your libertarian state deal with price fixing?

If I recall correctly, the “libertarian state” doesn’t deal with anything. Instead, it waits for the free market to correct itself. Most likely, when angry consumers storm the business’s main office, tear apart the company, and eat the board.

@Gray Falcon

No one is forcing you to do business with a business. The only entity that forces you is the State. If a business tries to gouge you don’t buy from it. Oil is price fixed by the intergovernment cartel and look at the negative effects that is causing.

Delysid, something you should know about science. If a hypothesis’s predictions fail to match up with the real world, that hypothesis is discarded. Your economic theories predict monopolies and price fixing will not happen absent regulation. Monopolies and price fixing have happened (see anti-trust laws), therefore, libertarian economic theory should go the way of phlogiston and the four humors.

Delysid, let’s say I run a small business. And let’s say I need to ship products to Seattle by truck or rail. And let’s say both lines are owned by the same company, who decides to price-gouge me. What am I supposed to do? Deliver them by myself?

Most nuclear waste was created by government nuclear weapons programs FYI.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Waste_Policy_Act

I don’t know the best way to dispose of nuclear waste. Apparently government does either. Blast it into space? Marrianna trench? Yucca mountain? I don’t know. Wildlifevaround Chernobyl seems to be thriving. It seems the creatures being screwed most by humans are other humans.

Market monopolies are temporary. When they occur it is not necessarily a bad thing. John D Rockefeller single handidly droppedvthe price of oil from (estimating because I’m working right now) something like 10 dollars a barrel to 30 cents. He made oil cheap affordable for the poorest people in society. He might have been one of the richest humans ever, but he also improved the world in unprecedented levels. Same thing with Vanderbilt and shipping.

Delysid: I need evidence, not estimates. The drop in oil prices could easily have been from improvements in technology, hardly something only one person needed to do. Now tell me, why should I believe that the only people in the government are those who act out of motiveless malignancy, and that the only people in business are perfectly pure and selfless?

Oh, and by the way, I’m not trusting your libertarian sites for the same reason I would not trust a “science” site that claimed that birds fly through the air due to their special connection to the spirits of the sky, and therefore, heavier that air flight is impossible for humans.

@Delysid:

Price fixing? It is the State that price fixes and it is disastrous.

Really? The state got several bakeries to work together to fix prices in South Africa? The state got the construction companies building stadia and the like for the 2010 World Cup to fix prices even though it was a customer of said companies?
You have no freaking clue just how foolish your comments are.

People in the market don’t have to act like altruistic angels. That is the whole point. But even with profits Voluntary capitalism is not exploititave. It is cooperative. Read I, Pencil that I linked to.

Gray Falcon I mean this literally- you do not understand economics. Pretty much everything you have said has been a misrepresentation.

My libertarian sources are academic economists. Milton Friedman and Hayek won the Noble Prize in economics (which Noble himself greatly opposed because economics is not a science) explaining these basic principles of the market. You are guided by political ideology.

Your link sounds like it was written by a high school kid.

But even with profits Voluntary capitalism is not exploititave.

Really? So the Bangladeshi sweatshops mentioned above aren’t exploitative? Manufacturers colluding to drive up the prices of goods and services aren’t being exploitative?
I said before that you have no freaking clue just how foolish your comments are. I now wish to amend my comment.
You have no freaking clue full stop.

Delysid, I agree with you on one point. Economics, as it currently is, isn’t a science, in the same way the balancing the humors isn’t science. If I do not understand economics, then that is because I live on planet Earth, not the world where economists come from.

Sadly, I just finished reading ‘I, Pencil’, as recommended by Delysid, who promised it explains how the free market works. Perhaps I have missed something, but It strikes me as one of the dumbest things I have ever read. It starts by claiming that no one knows how a pencil is made, which is obviously untrue. What is meant by this, it transpires, is that no single person knows everything involved in producing all the components of a pencil:

None of the thousands of persons involved in producing the pencil performed his task because he wanted a pencil. Some among them never saw a pencil and would not know what it is for. Each saw his work as a way to get the goods and services he wanted—goods and services we produced in order to get the pencil we wanted.

But clearly someone figured out how to make pencils (Simonio and Lyndiana Bernacotti in around 1560 as a matter of fact), various other people improved upon the design and someone else decided to set up a pencil factory, with the purpose of making and selling pencils, including the eponymous pencil purportedly writing this essay.

Even in the absence of pencils, people would still mine graphite, grow cedars and produce the other raw materials for which there are other markets. Surely the author cannot be suggesting that pencil factories and pencils arose spontaneously, that would be preposterous, yet I read:

There is a fact still more astounding: The absence of a master mind, of anyone dictating or forcibly directing these countless actions which bring me into being. No trace of such a person can be found. Instead, we find the Invisible Hand at work.

No we don’t. We find a person who figured out that encasing graphite in wood might be a useful way of making marks on paper, and then used raw materials that were already available to do so. The Invisible Hand didn’t do it, people did.

The lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let society’s legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed.

What a weird non sequitur. How does any of this follow? How would regulating the market have prevented anyone from inventing and producing pencils?

I can only assume I have missed something in this essay of which the introduction states:

[…] this little essay opens eyes and minds among people of all ages. Many first-time readers never see the world quite the same again.

Perhaps Delysid could explain what I have missed or misunderstood.

So Delysid trots out a Wiki reference to legislation, not regulation. Delysid also seems blissfully unaware of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, which has been successfully storing a great deal of U.S. defense-generated nuclear waste for years now. Not to mention Delysid can’t seem to differentiate between the effects of a nuclear accident and the current storage of nuclear waste.

You haven’t quite earned a gold star yet on this topic, Delly old chum.

Delysid:

Read I, Pencil to understand how the market works.

I, Pencil:

Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed.

As I said above, Delysid, your worldview is a religion; your own source confirms this. You do remember this is a skeptic blog, right? Don’t you understand that the proper skeptical response to the claim in I, Pencil is prove it?

@ Delysid:

“I do not want people like Tim Gietner of Goldman Sachs as Sec. of Treasury.”

You, of course, have a link to Tim Geitner’s employment record at Goldman Sachs?

Tick tock, tick tock, only five more days until your pals at the Tea Party fail to raise the debt limit and your nice cushy taxpayer-paid education loan interest rates go sky high.

Cheer up, there’s always taxpayer-paid food stamps and someone must need some toilet pulling, Tidy Bowl Boy.

#883 Like I said: There’s no need to argue with Delysid. He has read his Book, had a conversion experience and says evidence wouldn’t change his mind.

He has faith in the Invisible Hand.

Khani

There’s no need to argue with Delysid. He has read his Book, had a conversion experience and says evidence wouldn’t change his mind.

He has faith in the Invisible Hand.

QFT

It is clear that for all his claims that we are the ones ignorant about economics, Delysid hasn’t taken a single course in economics or he would understand how the “Invisible Hand” like any negative feedback loop can lead to cyclical price swings. Even a first year micro economics course covers these things in far more detail than his simplistic understanding. He rejects utilitarianism in favor of ideological purity, forgetting that Adam Smith was a Utilitarian philosopher. He reminds me of those hapless Christian Fundies who wander into militant atheist fora like Pharyngula assuming the denizens are unfamiliar with bible and only need to shown “the light”, completely unaware that many of them deconverted once they actually read the bible. As I said before, for his ilk “The Wealth of Nations” is like the bible, you are supposed to worship it, not read it.

After the sub-prime crash, Michael Shermer became an embarrassment to the skeptical movement with his free market fundamentalist insistence that the sub-prime crash was not the inevitable result of de-regulation of the banks, but was rather the fault of regulation. Neither socialism or capitalism will work without a recognition that unethical people will figure out a way to game the system. Freeloaders will game the former and thieves in suits will game the latter on a much grander scale.

Delysid, something you should know about science. If a hypothesis’s predictions fail to match up with the real world, that hypothesis is discarded.

He tipped his hand on this front well before the Word of Power (which D. apparently holds in such superstitious awe that, as a mirror image of dirt-common Tetragrammaton, it defies even the making of inferential statements) oozed forth:

The whole point of the climatology ‘controversy’ is that humans are playing a major role in the system. This means that human action throws in uncertain parameters. It is more similar to econometrics than some people are admitting, in my opinion.

This was proffered, apparently, in the expectation that whatever the hell D.’s amygdala happened to beaming to the Realm of Mind about econometrics must represent a sharp resonance peak when transformed to the Group Domain.

I nearly remarked about it, because I had been looking, over the summer, at what James Heckman* (or, more precisely, his lab) was up to. It was a rather refreshing contrast to the vibe I had gotten a while back that the presence of Computer Modern was a sign of Much Pondering in certain circles, or something.

D. can’t handle this. It’s messy, and his talent is superficial memorization. Why do you think he wishes he could “drop out of school and work for private dentist as an apprentice for the remaining 18 months[**] of dental school and get my degree, as a message to the world that I am competent”? Or is incoherently complaining about the bits of what is only intelligible as part of a practicum, if that?

It’s not translating. Despite lip service to “private governing bodies and boards to uphold medical standards,” he wants out from the one that he chose. Little does translate, apparently. And when this happens, the standard is supposed to come to him, and not the other way around. Even better, let us fashion a simulacrum of an inhuman force. They’re more docile, right?

My books are still largely packed. As a consequence, I’ve learned that one H. Peter Kahn was the inspiration for David Grün in Been Down So Long. Poor D. is yet stuck with Calvin Blacknesse.

* Also a recipient of the “Noble [sic] Prize in economics [sic]”; I’ve yet to figure out how D. arrived at the conclusion that Alfred Nobel “greatly opposed” this, as though there were anyone to argue with about it at the time, but this may be a function of working with nonnative authors who have a better grasp of English.

** Eighteen? Aren’t these curricula structured by year?

Is Adam Smith the official spokesman for free-markets?

Adam Smith had some interesting ideas, but like Sigmund Freud, many of his ideas (like the THE INVISIBLE HAND) have since been abandoned.

Attacking libertarianism through Adam Smith, who died in 1790, is about as ridiculous as attacking Ayn Rand. Just because they contributed to classical liberal thought does not mean they are infallible perfect representatives of the ideology. Attacking an 18th century philosopher who promoted free-markets combined with blatant fallacies is no different from an alternative medicine quack attacking an 18th century physician who advocated ideas such as ether. There have been advancements in the fields in the 250 years.

Support of the free-markets is in no way similar to belief in a religion. We are the market. The market (in the US at least) is made up of 300 million individuals using free will to make decisions. This is not central planning by a handful of elites and it is not supposed to be.

God dammit this is so frustrating. I don’t adhere to a belief in an “invisible hand.” I’ve never heard a libertarian even use this phrase. It is statists who keep repeating this concept.

Keynes used the term “animal spirits.” Am I relentlessly attacking animal spirits like this is a concept all of you agree on?

Thomas Jefferson is one of my intellectual heroes, but he owned slaves and as president intervened with the government in various affairs. I disagree with these actions despite vehemently supporting the vast majority of his philosophical and political science writing.

Does this mean every libertarian supports owing slaves because Jefferson did so?

Hypocritical behavior by individuals does not invalidate the principles of classical liberalism/libertarianism.

Also no two people are in total agreement about everything. I am a huge fan of Ron Paul, but I openly disagree with him on several topics (particularly vaccines and evolution and recreational drug use). This does not invalidate his other points or the voluntaryist ideology.

Attacking an 18th century philosopher who promoted free-markets combined with blatant fallacies is no different from an alternative medicine quack attacking an 18th century physician who advocated ideas such as ether.

There are two possible decodings of the payload of this mess, and neither works out well for you.

Delysid,

God dammit this is so frustrating. I don’t adhere to a belief in an “invisible hand.” I’ve never heard a libertarian even use this phrase. It is statists who keep repeating this concept.

Then why did you ask us to read ‘I, Pencil’ as an explanation of how the free market works? The entire thesis of the essay is that an ‘Invisible Hand’ guides the market:

Instead, we find the Invisible Hand at work.[…] Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed.

Yet now you tell me you don’t believe this? Someone here is very confused, methinks.

Incidentally, I think the very concept of an ideology suggests an end to thought, the rejection of anything that does not fit with the ideology and a blind adherence to the ideology regardless of the consequences. It is a religious concept, based on dogma and ‘Holy Writ’ and is incompatible with reason, in my opinion.

I thought the invisible hand was a very serious offense until I read Adam Smith.

And Militant Agnostic nails it.
,

Neither socialism or capitalism will work without a recognition that unethical people will figure out a way to game the system. Freeloaders will game the former and thieves in suits will game the latter on a much grander scale.

Delysid fails to realise that we have laws, monitoring authorities and penaties for breaches for a reason.

Delysid referring to “the invisible hand”.

I’ve never heard a libertarian even use this phrase.

You need to get out more.

The dogmatic insistence that the “Free Market” always results in a better outcome and that the government can not do anything well in spite of evidence to the contrary is indistinguishable from religious fundamentalism. There is also the loaded language you use to “other” heretics who question your dogma.

That’s a point I tried to make earlier when he stated he didn’t have solutions but trusted others would come up with them. Other people already have, in the form of government laws and penalties.

#891 … uh, “the Invisible Hand” was in the text that *you* told us to read.

Your exact words: “Read I, Pencil to understand how the market works.”

The text postulates that the market works via the “Invisible Hand.”

If you don’t believe that the market works via the “Invisible Hand,” why did you tell us to read the text “to understand how the market works”?

@ Militant Agnostic:
@ Narad:

I haven’t been commenting much here because the thread is getting too long to load within a reasonable amount of time which doesn’t integrate well with my schedule- so I’ll be brief and then , off.

I have to say I’m in agreement- esp about Shermer, education, etc..

Say what you will, schools of economics put forth hypotheses which we can TEST in the real world and computers make this so much easier.

Something happened in 2007-8 that has led for some unimaginable reason ( heh) , to a resurgence of Keynesianism. I wonder why?

I don’t believe that the Nobel committee only awards prizes to one particular school of economics. Recently there was that fellow Paul from Princeton.

See, now I’ve gone and done it- mentioned two *betes noires* of D’s in a single post.Who’s the third? Anyone?

Still waiting for your to cough up Tim Geitner’s employment record at Goldman Sachs….Tidy Bowl Boy.

The little editor of Autism Investigated has a new post up…again attacking Mark Blaxill and defending the Geiers and Wakefield. Comedy Gold!

“Mark Blaxill’s Early Interference in Omnibus Revealed”

@lilady – of course, AoA created the monster, now they are reaping what they sow….good for them (sarcastic chuckle).

@Denise

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/niall-ferguson/paul-krugman-euro_b_4060733.html

The invisible hand is just a metaphor. I think it is a crappy because of religious connotations. Remember Smith coined this term in an era where rejection of religion was a serious social offense. I believe the “invisible hand” is meant to appeal to theists.

It doesn’t change the fact that markets are self-regulating, but I have no desire to defend the metaphor. As several pointed out, I, Pencil does defend the metaphor, but it is still right in the explanation of capitalism and markets. Also, modern libertarians rarely use the term ‘invisible hand.’ It is used far more often disparigingly by critics of free-markets than by defenders.

I confused Henry Paulson with Timothy Geithner.

Henry Paulson was CEO of Goldman Sachs before Secretary of Treasury. My point still stands about regulatory capture. In the eagerness to point out this mistake did anyone stumble upon the Paulson and Geihtner relationship and conveniently remain silent? I’m guessing so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Paulson

Just go away Tidy Bowl Boy. You confused Tim Geitner with Hank Paulson, which seems to be a pattern with you, since you first arrived at RI spreading your manure.

Goldman Sachs, for those who work in finance, is otherwise called Government Sachs, because of the cozy relationship between GS and the Treasury Department.

@lilady

I really hope you don’t think that you said anything intelligent or made any rational points.

Ginger Taylor makes better arguments against vaccines than you make about politics.

Thomas Jefferson remarked that he supported women’s suffrage, but after living in France and hearing the nonsensical gibberish of the women in Parisian salons talking about politics, he admitted that they weren’t ready yet.

One of those women must have been your ancestor.

Delysid, you do know that by resorting to outright misogyny, that you’re pretty much conceded that lilady’s correct? If you had a real counter, you would have used it. Instead, all you can do is give us insults that might have been considered clever in third grade.

Just stating the facts.

It was men who ended the American Republic by ushering in the tyrannical Progressive Era (Prohibition, Income tax, WWI, federal segregation, et cetera) by voting in the pseudodictator Woodrow Wilson. Ironically women’s suffrage was one of the only pro-liberty achievements in that Era.

Nope. No French heritage at all. My brother-in-law was born in Ohio. Does that count?

I made my points up thread, before you decided to entertain us with your wacky Paulist anarchist politics and your totally ignorant views on the economy.

Delysid:

Thomas Jefferson remarked that he supported women’s suffrage, but after living in France and hearing the nonsensical gibberish of the women in Parisian salons talking about politics, he admitted that they weren’t ready yet.

Firstly, citation needed. You have made some rather questionable claims on this forum.
Secondly, I’d like to point out that in those days, educating females wasn’t really the done thing.
Thirdly, ever heard of Queen Elizabeth?

If we hit 1,000 comments, Orac gets a new pony, right?

Or is it free first-class airline tickets? I can never remember…

It doesn’t change the fact that markets are self-regulating, […]

I can think of a number of things that are self-regulating, mostly in the human body since that’s an area I have the most knowledge about; pH, temperature, blood pressure, blood glucose, blood electrolytes etc.. In every case I can describe the mechanisms involved and how they work, for example buffering and respiratory and renal compensation in the case of pH. All these mechanisms work towards maintaining conditions conducive to the survival and optimal functioning of the organism, because they are designed (in the sense of having evolved) to do so. For example if blood pH falls (CO2 rises), the brain sense it, stimulates respiration, more CO2 is exhaled, and pH rises again – that’s self-regulation.

I can see how a ‘free market’ can lead to Pareto Efficiency, but what are the homeostatic mechanisms that self-regulate the market towards a state that is beneficial to all? What monitors the well-being of the people in that society? What feedback is there from a poor person who is being exploited, starved or dying of illness that would stimulate the free market economy to make conditions better for him?

I can see no reason why a free market economy would not end up with a few rich people exploiting everyone else by paying very low wages, as has been the case in the past and still is in many parts of the world. We could rely on the consciences of the very rich, as in Victorian times, to prompt them to do philanthropic good works, but that doesn’t seem very practical to me. It was only the development of trade unions and the passing of various labor laws that ended the miserable conditions for millions of people in the 19th and early 20th century in Europe and the USA. The idea that abolishing these hard-won regulations would somehow liberate people seems utterly nuts to me.

I continue to see parallels between antivaxxers and libertarians. Antivaxxers look at the relative absence of contagious diseases in the developed world and assume this is how it would be without vaccination, but without any side effects of vaccines, not understanding that the current state of affairs is largely due to mass vaccination. Antivaxxers accuse those who support vaccination of being brainwashed Big Pharma shills who was unable to think for themselves.

Libertarians look at the relative lack of crime, labor exploitation and corporate malfeasance we see in the developed world, and assume this is how it would be without government, but without any of the negative aspects of government, not understanding that the current state of affairs is largely due to government. Libertarians accuse those who are in favor of having a democratically elected government of being brainwashed progressives, liberals, socialists, liars, or “retards” who are unable to think for themselves.

I meant, “brainwashed Big Pharma shills who are unable to think for themselves”. obviously.

@ Scottynuke:

“If we hit 1,000 comments, Orac gets a new pony, right?

Or is it free first-class airline tickets? I can never remember…”

Wrong. Orac gets a pair of tickets behind home plate for Wednesday night’s Tigers-Sox game at Comerica Park. Go Tigers!

Also, modern libertarians rarely use the term ‘invisible hand.’

Naturally, you have undertaken a methodologically sound survey of the literature to quantify this assertion, right? Oh, wait, you think Marie Curie was a work-at-home mom. Perhaps you could start by defining your inclusion criteria.

Delysim, aka DullardSimp:
“Thomas Jefferson remarked that he supported women’s suffrage, but after living in France and hearing the nonsensical gibberish of the women in Parisian salons talking about politics, he admitted that they weren’t ready yet.”
I think we can see Jefferson’s view of women’s rights when you remember that because his wife’s half-sister had a black grandparent that it was okay to receive her as a gift from his father-in-law, who was also her father, keep her as property, and himself father children with her who, like their mother, had all the same rights as cattle, with the exception of not being butchered for the table. You claim to be opposed to his holding of slaves, but can’t see his slaveholding to be part and parcel of his views on women, i.e. that some human beings were inferior to others and could be treated as chattels. How far, do you think, were his views on property influenced by his fear that others would interfere with the property that was his personal sex toy?

I just rechecked my facts about Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Jefferson and his wife inherited her mixed-race half-sister, so she wasn’t a gift. He also treated their six children well, raising them in his house, and oh-so-kindly “granting” them their freedom (which should never have been his to decide on, and that solely from the facts of their birth), probably never questioning the propriety of having such power over any human, let alone his own children.

Excellent analogy Krebiozen @ 914.

Also, Libertarians prefer “a pound of cure” in the form of litigation after an externality causes harm over an “ounce of prevention” in the form of regulation. Never mind the nievity about how litigation against the wealthy and powerful plays out in the real world.

Mostly, they are just entitled dudebros whining about how their total awesomeness is not being justly rewarded because of the evil government.

Libertarians also enjoy the municipal services (police, fire protection, our armed forces, the regulatory agencies that protect our food/clean water supply, the availability of 24/7 good hospital care staffed by trained health care worker, using state-of-the-art medical equipment…as well as the safety nets put in place for the indigent out-of-work/out of options individuals in our society….yet they do not want to pay the dues (State and Federal Income Taxes) that actually pay for those services. Cutting to the chase…they are selfish free-riders and parasites, pure and simple.

@lilady

You are delusional. So libertarians, who believe in personal responsibility, are actually free-loaders who want to live as dependent on others? They believe the opposite of what they claim just because you say they do?

The problem is not libertarianism. The problem is that you are (hopelessly) irrational.

Orac, I hope you read through all of these comments.

Your readers, at least the ones commenting on this thread, are every bit as anti-intellectual and delusional as the worst quacks. It’s an endless circular argument of statist prejudice and elitism. Just as the quacks have many others reaffirming their superstitions, your readers are cheering on each others ignorance. The collectivism is so deeply entrenched that it infests every comment. Idee fixe.

My work is done here.

@Delysid:

So libertarians, who [claim to] believe in personal responsibility, are actually free-loaders who want to live as dependent on others? They believe the opposite of what they [say they] claim..?

Yes.

The problem is not libertarianism.

True. The problem is human fallibility, combined with libertarianism’s inability to deal with that fallibility.

My work is done here.

Buh-bye, and don’t let the door hit you on the backside on the way out.

Orac, I hope you read through all of these comments. […] My work is done here.

Like anyone would read the drivel you have written here and convert to libertarianism? You accuse everyone else of being ignorant, brainwashed and anti-intellectual, yet you can’t raise a single rational argument to support your indefensible position. You have posted nothing but ideology, dogma and argument by assertion. Now you claim victory? Pathetic.

It’s not a “conversion.” It’s not a religion. There is no membership. The vast majority of people already live their life as voluntaryists/libertarians.

Stop using (or voting for) the force of the State to rob and control others. Stop being stupid.

Of course I didn’t convince anyone here. I’m battling decades of indoctrination and majority opinion. It’s painful to confront reality and realize that you are a slave. It’s why statists defend the State with such vigorous anger.

Interesting how this thread has gone from discussing the original post (Delysid soundly trouncing Taylor’s erroneous beliefs) to libertarianism.

@Delysid

What I find most interesting about your comments is that you accuse everyone else of being Statists and dogmatic, wedded to some sort of “God of the Government” ideology, yet when asked for evidence to support your assertions that libertarianism is a better approach, you provide none. Instead, you invoke invective (they’re indoctrinated, stupid, etc.) and react with a great deal of anger (at least, that’s the way your comments come off to me as I read them). Why not support your assertion with evidence.

@Todd – I’d still like him to point to a single instance where this has been tried & proven to be more successful (or even as successful) as what we’ve had historically and currently….otherwise, he’s just another theorist, claiming “his way” is better, but offering no proof that it would be.

@Lawrence

Indeed. If I recall correctly, there are instances in modern history that give an example of what happens when there is little, if any, government regulation and the marketplace is left to decide. I can’t remember the specific examples, but I seem to remember none of them ending well at all.

What’s odd to me about Delysid is that he doesn’t seem to understand that Libertarianism is a hypothesis, and that it’s completely reasonable for rational people to consider this hypothesis and reject it. He also doesn’t seem to understand that there are those of us here, including myself, that are sympathetic to the Libertarian position on several issues.

Delysid, this is not the first time I’ve encountered the ideas you’ve presented here. Unfortunately, you are unable to see that you are terrible at presenting and defending these ideas; I’ve seen these same points argued much more convincingly by people much more intelligent than you, and I’d wager others here have as well. Quoting/plagiarizing other people’s arguments may have worked for you as an undergrad, but it doesn’t cut it among people who actually engage in critical thinking.

Of course I didn’t convince anyone here. I’m battling decades of indoctrination and majority opinion. It’s painful to confront reality and realize that you are a slave.

What other explanation can you offer for how rational people who’ve read and understand the ideas you put forward might not reach the same conclusion you did? Do you think that you possess special abilities that allow you to ‘battle indoctrination’ better than others here? If so, what are these abilities?

vast majority of people already live their life as voluntaryists/libertarians.
I’m battling decades of indoctrination and majority opinion

You’re either in the majority or minority, Delysid: which is it?

My experience as a computer programmer has taught me some useful lessons about politics:
1) Complex problems require complex solutions. Anyone who has spent time debugging a Web application knows what leads to thousand-page documents, and it isn’t a desire for power.
2) Never say “Nobody is dumb enough to do that.” There is always going to be somebody dumb enough to do that. It may be stupid to poison your customers, but some businesses will do it.
3) You can’t always simply leave your job. The market for programmers isn’t that good, so leaving my job if my employer did something objectionable would not be an option.

By the way, Delysid, if you’re having trouble convincing. When someone asks you serious questions about how your free society will function under real-world conditions, your best bet is not to reply with “How do you wipe your own ass?”. People don’t respond to being mouthed off by a snot-nosed kid especially after asking a serious question.

@Gray Falcon

I’m glad you brought this back up again.

I DEMAND TO KNOW HOW A FREE SOCIETY WILL WORK!

No one explains to me how they wipe their asses without governmentn regulating and controlling the process. If you can’t explain to me how you know how to wipe your own ass, then clearly explaining how a free society works is far too advanced.

This is a serious question that I demand an answer to.

If a socialist demands for me to explain how a free society would work for [X] issue. I offered them a rebuttal- how would they wipe their own ass if the toilet paper industry became socialized and then free again?

Would it be CHAOS? Would robber barons charge exorbitant prices for toilet paper? Would gangs and warlords fight over the toilet paper industry? Would you just wipe your ass with sand paper? Or poison ivy?

How would [medicine] work in a free society? How would [fire protection] work in a free society? How would [wiping our own asses] work in a free society?

The burden of proof is on the State. You tell me how it would work.

My answer that “the State has no business wiping my ass. It is my right and perogative to wipe my ass any way I see it.”

I don’t need scientific evidence to prove that I can wipe my ass better than the State can wipe it for me.

This extremely simple concept seems to be far too sophisticated for the readers of this blog. It’s funny, Ginger Taylor undrestands this prinicple quite well.

#926 I’m not surprised you didn’t stick the flounce.

If literally no evidence and no reasoning could ever convince you libertarianism is not always optimal, it is *not a rational belief.*

That’s fine; I have no problem with having nonrational beliefs, but I do feel they should be acknowledged as such.

My work is done here.

You haven’t done any work here, Delysid. You’ve spent the entire thread avoiding direct questions (“How would your unregulated free market society would deal with the problems posed by the generation of chemical, radioactive and bio-hazardous waste?”
“Given that in even the presence of government ‘force’ (i.e., strong regulation and a judicial system capable of punishing offenders) we observe that people will still behave unethically, what credible evidence suggests people would behave any better in its absence?” etc.) while occasionally admitting that you can’t identify actual answers but are confident others will once the free market economy gets going.

It may be stupid to poison your customers, but some businesses will do it.

For some business ventures (cigarettes, for example, or more obviously crack heroin, etc) poisoning your customers might be the most productive business model.

Delysid:
A few questions for you. Try to answer them seriously.
Libertarians talk a lot about “enlightened self-interest”. Tell me, who decides what it is? How do we inculcate this in our children, especially if no one can dictate what we teach them? Where is the balance between enlightenment and self-interest, and how do you recognize it?
Is “strict liability” meant to be punitive or compensatory? If the latter, what happens to someone injured and left with extraordinary needs if the liable party has no recoverable assets? If the former, and again without significant assets, where’s the punishment? What happens if the strict liability is so diffuse that no one is forced to pay any noteworthy damages? And what about the death of someone without surviving relatives or others to bring suit? How do you feel about inheritance laws, and does death cancel liability?
How is liability determined in the absence of mandatory standards? We know where the fault lies if a builder fails to build to code or if a manufacturer uses banned materials, but if there’s no regulation how do we decide among two or more competing standards?
How does your system deal those who use their wealth to abuse others? When does self-interest shade over into cupidity?
What specific functions of government would you preserve? And please don’t answer this one with generalities. Name specific things, like meat inspection, weights and measures, hack licensing bureaus, etc.

“My work is done here”.

What work? He started a flame war with this statement at # 105

“@ Khani Forcing changes in education in textbooks is incomparably tame to the economic and societal consequences being demanded in the name of climate change.

I despise religious dogma and I am an unapologetic defender of the theory of evolution, but you are lying to yourself. I’ve avoided commenting on Orac’s blog because of some of the political pretentiousness, despite agreeing vehemently with the idea of “science-based medicine.”

Make certain to stick the flounce Tidy Bowl Boy.

Does anyone remember the story of Laker Skytrain? Freddie Laker, already successful in the air freight business, started a no-frills transAtlantic airline – $99 between New York and London – the “better mousetrap”. He actually got a lot of business. Did he mop the floor with the competition? Hell, no. The larger carriers with deeper pockets simply cut their fares until Skytrain went bankrupt. As soon as it did, they raised their fares again. They also used their economic and political clout to shut him out of potentially lucrative routes. There’s a lesson in there.
How about jeans? Levi’s jeans had better quality and lower prices than the designer jeans that came into the market in the ’70s. My then brother-in-law knew Calvin Klein, and he admitted that he couldn’t make as good a product at the same price. But he had a name and superior marketing, so he sold his lower-quality jeans at a higher price, and so did many of the others. Did Levi’s undercut them? Guess again. Levi’s struck back with it’s own marketing campaign, meanwhile raising its own prices to match the Ralph Laurens and Gloria Vanderbilts of the industry.Imagine – successfully competing by raising your prices. There’s a lesson in there, too.

@lilady,

Cutting to the chase…they are selfish free-riders and parasites, pure and simple.

I’m not sure that ‘s an entirely fair characterization, at least not in every case. People who disagree with government policy do not always have the ability to both reject the policy and not get the benefits thereof (at least not without fleeing the country). One might just as easily argue that those who got conscientious objector status were “selfish free-riders and parasites” because they took the benefits of having military defense while refusing to participate themselves and even, in some cases, protesting the use of the very thing that benefited them.

Out of curiosity, why *don’t* they stop using the fruits of government, like the roads, the post offices, etc. etc. At least insofar as it is even possible to do so…

#933 and #934 were Delysid, not me. It was probably an accident. You could probably tell because unlike him, I understand the concept of burden of proof, and that fire and police protection are not even remotely analogous to wiping one’s Delysid.

@Khani

Again you are stuck on the nirvana fallacy. At no point did I say a free society will always be optimal In fact, this is impossible for at least two reasons.

1. There is no universal consensus on what is ‘optimal.’ Every person has a different idea about what is optimal. Some people come to general agreements, of course (like with dosages in pharmacology), but this doesn’t mean that one individual (or group) is wrong for deviating from the general agreement of others. How much food does each person require? How much toilet paper should one person use?

Who is supposed to decide this? An elite group of people in some far off city? The only fair way to decide is for each person to decide what is right for himself (or at least voluntarily take the advice of others). Marx tried to justify his collectivism with the phrase “to each according to his need,” but again who decides what each person needs? Should it not be the individual who decides?

2. How can something always be optimal? This is not only impossible, it is extremely undesirable for the advancement of society. Imperfection is vital for improvement. It’s how we (the market) learns what works and what does not. Some businesses should fail. Some people should fail. Mistakes need to happen. The key is to have a free society so that when something fails, someone else has the opportunity to improve upon it.

This is the greatness of the marketplace of ideas. Freedom does not just mean freedom to profit and succeed. Freedom also means the freedom to fail and lose.

A powerful example of this in my opinion is the concept of “everyone getting a trophy.” If every kid on a sports team gets a trophy and wins, how are the losers suppose to get the essential negative feedback to alert them that they need to do something different? How does letting no one fail help society? I know the bleeding hearts want everyone to be given everything, but from my perspective, by doing this, we are actually screwing them from learning essential skills.

George Carlin explains this quite well in one of his last stand-ups.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not a heartless monster strawman that wants people to die on the streets. I strongly support compassion and charity . I despise Mr. Potter of It’s a Wonderful Life.

I just want people to be free to give to the charity that they find important instead of being taxed and having unaccountable politicians making those decisions for them. For instance, I financially support the Innocence Project. I always put money in the firemen boots when they hold events in my town. Others might despise this for political reasons, but I give generously to libertarian think tanks. It makes me happy to support philosophers and intellectualism.

Despite being an atheist, I strongly support the efforts of the Salvation Army, Catholic Church, and Mormon Church. I can’t find the video that shows the interworkings of it right now right now, but the Mormon Church has an unbelievable charity system.

I’m not going into dentistry just to profit. I want to help people. I enjoy treating people. I’m planning on not charging patients for dental work once they reach 80-85. I would definitely accept a pie as payment, and from what I have heard from physicians and dentists who do this, patients are happy to do such things and will do it voluntarily so they don’t feel like a charity case. When we did a medical mission in Ecuador we charged every single person 5 dollars. It wasn’t to make a profit, but because it is offensive in that culture to treat them as helpless. This to me is true charity.

I see kids with mouths full of caries and I just feel sad. It’s not their fault and they don’t have means to support themselves. I want to help them and I’ll do what I can. My family dentist was so kind to me growing up (and gave me a bunch of free things) and he inspired me to go into the profession.

But I despise Head Start. I resent being forced to participate in that program. It is not because I am a heartless greedy libertarian who hates children, but the opposite. I strongly believe it (and most, if not all government redistribution programs) is a wasteful misuse of resources that screws children and the adults trying to help them.

All of this to me is libertarianism. It’s people helping other people without coercion. There will always be some people in society who are heartless and greedy and give nothing back. Screw them. Let them keep their money and live in their own misery. It’s not my right to tell them how to live.

Also I should add that my family dentist didn’t just “give me free things.”

He and I played hundreds of hours of tennis. I was 10 years old and pummeling him. I didn’t totally understand it at the time, but tennis was my way of paying him. In retrospect I understand I understand the relationship.

Delysid, we’re not asking for a free society to be optimal, we’re asking for it to be adequate. The fact remains that so far, you’ve shown it isn’t, especially if people like you are involved.

@Old Rockin’ Dave

Thank you this is the first time you addressed me cordially. I’ll try my best to answer those questions.

“What specific functions of government would you preserve?”

If I could choose a government, it would be the American government under the Articles of Confederation. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the ‘best’ government that mankind has attempted so far. The American Republic founded after the Revolution under the Constitution was decent, but it had too many flaws and failed to restrain the Federal government. A major problem was Andrew Hamilton’s role in making a “strong” federal government, but compared to the political climate today, Alexander Hamilton was a libertarian.

The main function of government I would preserve would be a court system that upholds common law. This is not my area of expertise. I will differ this to Murray Rothbard, who explains it much more eloquently than I am capable of.

Please read Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution by Rothbard. It gets into several of the questions you posed to me about liability.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/1970/01/murray-n-rothbard/real-freedom-and-justice/

If you sincerely want insight into my political beliefs, please watch this series History of Liberty narrated by Andrew Napolitano.

History of Liberty Part 1 (The Original Tea Party): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y25RbOLD4Mo
History of Liberty Part 2 (The Civil War and Gilded Age): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qP2YYsq3cs
History of Liberty Part 3 (The Progressive Era): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k2Lp7YQ9N0
History of Liberty Part 4 (FDR’s State and LBJ’s Great Society): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa0ptTOG9I0
History of Liberty Part 5 (Big Govt and Tea Parties): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6Cm3Hz9GlI

I don’t think I answered all of your questions (particularly about inheritance), but let’s start here.

Delysid… please stop attempting to change what has actually occurred.

My question was “What sort of evidence would convince you that libertarianism does not always offer the optimal solution?”

You answered “You won’t change my mind about libertarianism with “evidence” because I don’t view politics as a science.”

That was your answer. Now you want to change your answer because you don’t like the term ‘optimal,” whereas the original question did not hinge on the meaning of the word “optimal,” and would have, in fact, allowed *you* to define the term optimal for the purposes of the question.

But you didn’t. Instead, you answered the question.

Now that you see that your answer had logical consequences, such as showing that your point of view is not rational, you want to take it back and start over.

The question was asked 507 comments ago and only *after* the consequences do you want to go back and start over with your answer. What would a libertarian do at this point?

Allow you to start over and try to sell your idea all over again, or just remind you politely that you lost, and encourage you to move on?

You already answered; you had no problem with the word “optimal” when you did (in post 722), and 224 comments and *a whole week* after you gave your answer, and showed yourself as irrational, you now want to take back your answer and talk definitions.

Maybe I am a libertarian after all.

You have clearly shown that your position is irrational. I encourage you to move on.

@ MO’B: “One might just as easily argue that those who got conscientious objector status were “selfish free-riders and parasites” because they took the benefits of having military defense while refusing to participate themselves and even, in some cases, protesting the use of the very thing that benefited them.”

Free riders don’t want to pay their Income Taxes which are budgeted for any services, including the military, police and fire protection, infrastructure, public schools and military and civilian hospitals…a far different scenario than claiming conscientious objector status.

Should I refuse to pay the 65 % of my sizable property tax bill which pays for the public schools in my town? I haven’t had a child in school for the last twenty years. Do you think that educating children through high school is the responsibility of every American…even those who are childless?

When we decided to send my daughter to a private high school, we didn’t ask for, nor did we expect, a school tax rebate. We voted to pass the public school budget each year while paying private school tuition and continue to this day, to vote to pass the school budget each year.

Now we have Ron Paul, who, during one of the Republican Candidates public debates (the one sponsored by the Tea Party), said let a (hypothetical) young accident victim die, if he didn’t have health insurance. In Ron Paul’s world “the churches, the charities” would provide hospital and medical care. That’s a doctor? That’s a man who should be elected President?

@Khani

I’m not going to stop using roads because I pay my taxes and for the time being they are my only means of conducting business. Using the roads does not make me a hypocrite, nor does it invalidate my arguments.

I am far from an Ayn Rand fanboy (in fact I’ve only read one book of her’s, Anthem, and I couldn’t even give a summary of it) but she is often attacked for accepting Social Security for this reason. By her logic, which I agree with, is that the money was taken from her by force, and by accepting Social Security she was just getting back what she already paid into. Some libertarians disagree with this mindset, but it is rational and logical. Personally I agree.

Ron Paul is often attacked by Democrats and other enemies for hypocrisy for campaigning for Federal spending in in his district, but by the same logic he was returning money to his constituents that was already taken from them in Federal taxes. This is completely consistent ideologically and legally with everything he said and did in his career in Congress.

I use federal student loans for dental school because there are no realistic other options with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Reserve in such control over the system. This does not mean I agree with the system and does not make me a hypocrite.

I will pay for my state license and use it to practice dentistry even though I disagree with state licenses. Again, I have no other choice.

It is literally impossible to completely separate yourself from government, positive or negative. I vehemently disagree with the existence of the TSA (and the department of Homeland Security), but I fly on commercial planes and subject myself to molestation in the security process.

If a slave relents and eats the food his master gives him, or lives in the shelter, or does the work, it does not validate the system or means he agrees with it. The punishment for openly defying the government authority is always death or imprisonment.

http://www.christophercantwell.com/2013/09/16/the-penalty-is-always-death-3/

@lilday

Income taxes don’t pay for military, fire, or police, You are dead-wrong.

Do you even know what income taxes pay for?

Do you know the history of the income tax?

Have you ever seen America: Freedom to Fascism?

@lilady

You are smearing Ron Paul about charity and you have no idea what the hell you are talking about. The man embodies everything great about medicine.

This is a political ad from a PAC but it doesn’t even matter. There is no reason to doubt this story is anything but true.

The compassion of Ron Paul http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rv0Z5SNrF4

You misrepresented his comments in that debate in an extremely dishonest way. The man practiced medicine before Medicare and Medicaid and the HMO Act of 1973 and did tons of charity work. “We never turned anybody away.”

Ron Paul GOP Debate w/ Wolf Blitzer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T9fk7NpgIU

Ron Paul Texas Straight Talk: In praise of private charities. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idLDz96LgCQ

Expanding on what lilady said at #948:

In Ron Paul’s world “the churches, the charities” would provide hospital and medical care.

In the Dark and Middle Ages, church charities were the main support for the indigent, disabled and sick. It was an early form of the welfare state. But tithes were paid to the church by most people, so the church could afford to be charitable. I can’t really see the difference between tithing (which in many cases WAS mandatory) and taxation.
As for Delysid:

Income taxes don’t pay for military, fire, or police, You are dead-wrong.

Really? Then what pays for the military?

Have you ever seen America: Freedom to Fascism?

Argument by youtube? You lose.

You really lose Delysid. Can you read a pie chart? Can you read the 19.2 percent slice of the pie for the Military? How about the 8.6 % slice of the pie for “All Other”…which covers “Aid To Localities” for police and fire staffing and equipment?

http://www.concordcoalition.org/learn/budget/federal-budget-pie-charts

Here’s your State’s Budget Expenditures in a pie chart. How much Ohio State Income Tax do you pay? to support your State and local government services, including fire and police staffing and equipment?

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/Ohio_state_spending.html

Cripes, you are one ignorant little anarchist when it comes to Federal and State Government Income Tax receipts and expenditures.

@Julian Frost

People still tithe to the church. A church is not a state as long as it is voluntary (as it has been in the US and Europe for the last 250 years), so your point is moot. Why does everyone here keep reverting back to ancient history (Dark/Middle Ages, Code of Hammurabi) and obscure, distant cultures that none of us has experienced (Somalia, Albania Blood Feuds) to discredit my points?

Income taxes do not pay for the military. Julian Frost, are you aware that there was no income tax in the US before 1913 (except briefly during Civil War) yet the US still had a military, police, and fire departments?

Tell me Julian, what do income taxes pay for? I already know the answer to this, so why don’t you do some research and educate the others? You and lilady have given blatantly incorrect information, so please correct yourself.

Just because From Freedom to Fascism is on Youtube does not invalidate the points it makes.

It’s not some jackass sitting in his basement ranting. Aaron Russo made a professional, well-researched documentary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America:_Freedom_to_Fascism

@lilady

The Federal Budget and Ohio government budget is not the same thing as “what the income tax funds.”

You are so wrong this isn’t even an argument. There are hundreds of taxes.

What does income tax specifically pay for?

Delysid:

Why does everyone here keep reverting back to ancient history (Dark/Middle Ages, Code of Hammurabi) and obscure, distant cultures that none of us has experienced (Somalia, Albania Blood Feuds) to discredit my points?

Because they are real world examples. And you still haven’t answered how a libertarian society would prevent blood feuds.

The Federal Budget and Ohio government budget is not the same thing as “what the income tax funds.”

And where do state and federal governments get the money to pay for the budget?
From Income Taxes in part.

Income taxes do not pay for the military. Julian Frost, are you aware that there was no income tax in the US before 1913 (except briefly during Civil War) yet the US still had a military, police, and fire departments?

I’d like to remind you that the US military was proportionally a lot smaller then than it is now and that modern military equipment is a lot more expensive in real terms. Also, the fact that there was no Income tax in the past does not mean that Income Tax now does not pay for the military. You could argue that it’s not necessary, but that’s not what you’re arguing.

I’m not certain that the tithing was returned to the people. Have you ever seen the Vatican museums and St. Peter’s Church and the bejeweled icons and other precious treasures crafted out of solid gold and encrusted with huge gemstones?

The individual chapels and niches in the Dom Gothic Cathedral in Cologne and Austrian churches have hundreds of relics and entire preserved bodies of saints each clad in gold cloth with crowns made of precious medals with large gemstones.

It occurs to me that Delysid hasn’t yet discovered that epiphanies are often wrong. They are convincing, exciting and passion-inspiring, but by their nature they eclipse reason to some extent (sometimes completely).

You are smearing Ron Paul about charity and you have no idea what the hell you are talking about. The man embodies everything great about medicine.

Ha.

Haha.

Hahaha.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Delysid made a funny!

That article mentions how Ron Paul supposedly told a prospective partner that he had to agree that the practice would not perform abortions.

Since this was 1968 and Roe v. Wade was not decided until 1973, this seems like a giant Duh!
Not break Texas law and risk prison time? Why sure, Ron.

As for their supposedly treating Medicaid and Medicare patients for free, one wonders how many such patients there were in the practice (how many ob-gyn patients would have been eligible for Medicare in the first place?) and how much others were charged to make up for the freebies.

Of course, Ron Paul is an utter dimwit about vaccination, which in itself stains his allegedly sterling medical record.

@Delysid:
I will open your links later, but first a point of fact. My last post was NOT the first time I addressed you cordially. I was polite up to and a little beyond the point where you called me an “asshole”. I was also justifiably offended at your “people like you” comment. You opened the door to incivility; you can’t complain about it if I walked through it. So while I will look with an open mind at your links, I just want to add one thing: go fuck yourself.
(My apologies for that last to Orac and everyone who is not Delysid. He earned it.)

A bit of clarification for Delysid. I, personally, do not believe that the government is the source of freedoms. One could argue that the natural state of humanity is freedom. However, nakedness is also the natural state of humanity. A republican government is created by people voluntarily giving up more trivial freedoms (the right to stab others with impunity, the right to sell poisonous medicine, the right to force employees to convert to your religion) in order to protect important freedoms. What you propose is ultimately a system where freedom is a commodity hoarded by the wealthy, to be given and sold as the see fit.

@Dangerous Bacon

Hey believe it or not there are people who sincerely believe that performing abortions is unethical regardless of laws.

Ron Paul and I are not in agreement about his belief that too many inoculations weaken the immune system. but he is absolutely correct by opposing mandatory vaccination.

I know ethics are foreign to some of the readers on this blog, but there are some people who still abide by the principle of autonomy.

I can’t help but laugh at the self-righteous laziness of the keyboard dictators regarding policies such as mandatory vaccination. It parallels public water fluoridation. “It’s too hard to treat patients as individuals and cater each treatment to each individual patient so let’s just dump a medication into the public water supply. I support mandatory public health measures by voting that way I can sit home and do nothing myself and pretend that I’m such a humanitarian and scientist!”

The authoritarian attitude regarding vaccination, even if well intended, has resulted in predictable blowback. People do not like being told how to live.

Also, you are wondering if Ron Paul really didn’t treat that many poor Medicaid patients in rural Texas? With some minimal research I found that there are 31,207 Medicaid recipients in Brazoria County. The population has increased since then, but one can assume that there were still many throughout Paul’s career, especially as one of 2 OB/GYNs in the county, the other being his partner.

http://county-health.findthedata.org/l/2541/Brazoria-County-Texas

Oh, and since Delysid is no doubt going to say “I didn’t voluteer”, consider a club with a cover charge, for the purpose of paying the band. By entering the establishment, one already owes the club money, in exchange for use of the club and listening to the band, despite having not agreed to anything. Is this acceptable? Why should one be exempt from paying for police and fire protection?

The Federal Budget and Ohio government budget is not the same thing as “what the income tax funds.”

That is so precious. While in theory there are specific taxes that exclusively fund some specific activities, most taxes go into the general fund and most expenses come out of that same fund. Examples of things that are paid for by trust funds are medicare, social security, and highways. Examples of things paid for by the general fund include the armed forces.

Income taxes go to the general fund.

One thing to note is that this is muddied by transfers between funds. The Social Security and Medicare funds, for instance, invest any surplus in government bonds. As those bonds mature, they are paid back to the trust fund out of the general fund. This means that, in effect, once the expenses from the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance trust funds exceed payroll taxes and other taxes earmarked for them, the excess will be paid for by the general fund (initially by redeeming bonds).

One other note – once a tax or fee is collected and enters the general fund (or any other government budgetary fund), it makes no difference whatsoever where that money came from. Money is money. You may choose to believe that your personal taxes are used only for the specific purposes you agree with if that makes you feel better.

@Delysid

I can’t help but laugh at the self-righteous laziness of the keyboard dictators regarding policies such as mandatory vaccination. It parallels public water fluoridation.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but do I understand you to say that government should not add fluoride to the (government funded and maintained) drinking water and should not require vaccination for entry into public (i.e., government-funded) schools? Would you also, then, oppose government removal of fluoride from public drinking water in those areas with naturally high levels of fluoride?

On the mandatory vaccination thing, let me ask you this: if you come into my house, do I have the right to require of you certain conditions before you’re allowed to come in?

Delysid @969 – a few questions, or points if you will.

I know ethics are foreign to some of the readers on this blog, but there are some people who still abide by the principle of autonomy.

Since when are ethics synonymous with automomy?

I suspect my concept of what is considered ethical is considerably different from yours.

Second – are you tossing out the gratuitous insults to the general readership of this thread deliberately in order to provoke a response, or is being generally offensive to others part of your way of life?

“I use federal student loans for dental school because there are no realistic other options with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Reserve in such control over the system. This does not mean I agree with the system and does not make me a hypocrite.”

Um, yes…it does mean you are a hypocrite. The deferment of your repayments of Federal education loans until you graduate and the low interest rates when you begin paying back those Federal college loans, are because others who pay Federal Income Tax are financing your grad school education.

The Senate came up with a deal so that we don’t default…now it is up to the Republican yahoos in the House to sign on to fund the Government operations until January 7, 2014. Tomorrow’s the deadline…after that Anarchist, your interest rate on those loans go sky high.

Orac, it appears that this thread will reach/exceed 1,000 comments. I’m having trouble scoring the pair of tickets for tonight’s Tigers-Sox game. Perhaps you’d better take the pony//sigh.

Jesus Christ, is this the third time it’s stomped off in a huff only to turn right back around?

I despise Mr. Potter of It’s a Wonderful Life…. Despite being an atheist, I strongly support the efforts of the Salvation Army….

I love the smell of irony in the morning, and I’m not talking about their public funding.

No, comrades brothers and sisters, I’m talking about this:

“Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you’re talking about… they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway, my father didn’t think so. People were human beings to him. But to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they’re cattle.”

[Banjos]

Take it away, Utah.

(Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?)

People still tithe to the church.

Some people to some churches, yes. Did you have a point?
If people are now still tithing to churches, it’s clearly not to such an extent tithing generates sufficient revenue for the churches to provide for all the assistance that state and federal taxes underwrite, since many people still rely on state and federal programs to provide subsidized housing, supplemental nutrition assistance (i.e., foodstamps), that provide health coverage (e.g., Medicaid), job training programs, etc.

What reason is there to believe that things would be any different in your fantasy free market society, and suddenly religious charities alone would be enough?

@lilady

You reminded me of something else I meant to mention. Delysid uses federal loans because there are “no realistic other options”. Does Delysid mean they are not willing to get a loan from, say, a bank or private business to fund their education? Why not? Wouldn’t that be the Libertarian, free-market way?

Delysid, most of us understand ethics in a different way than you do. You hold an absolutist view, that a specific action is always wrong, regardless of reasoning. Thus, to intrude on one man’s freedom by preventing him from enslaving hundreds is morally wrong. We, on the other had, take a more practical approach, recognizing there are specific principles, but that they are not absolute, and the main question is everyone’s happiness.

Delysid,

“It’s too hard to treat patients as individuals and cater each treatment to each individual patient so let’s just dump a medication into the public water supply.

I’m alarmed that a dentist in traiing doesn’t appear to understand this. Fluoride occurs in the water supply naturally, and areas with a higher concentration have lower incidence of dental caries. Fluoridation simply brings the concentration of fluoride in low fluoride areas up to the naturally beneficial concentration.

How this can be described as “medication” beats me. Is chlorinating the water also medicating people against their will? What about filtering out sewage? Adding folate to flour? Adding B vitamins to breakfast cereals?

Delysid certainly understands fluoridation, but obviously opposes it in order to increase the number of potential customers. Can’t have any interference in the ability to offer services on the free market to as many as possible, now can we?

And Delly ol’ sod, your ongoing lack of coherent response to the question regarding “onerous regulation of nuclear waste disposal” is duly noted.

Second – are you tossing out the gratuitous insults to the general readership of this thread deliberately in order to provoke a response, or is being generally offensive to others part of your way of life?

My guess? he’s throwing out insults in an attempt to distract us, so we swon’t notice he still hasn’t answered any of our questions regarding how his libertarian free market society would address practical concerns such as workplace safety, exploitive labor parctices 9e.g., child labor), drug and food safety, emergency services (fire and police), healthcare, etc.

“I use federal student loans for dental school because there are no realistic other options with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Reserve in such control over the system.

What “realistic other options” do you believie should operate in lieu of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal reserve? Or is this another case where you can offer no solution but are comfident some one else ill would up with something even better, if only Fannie Mae etc. were dismantled?

Remember what Delysid said earlier?

If I could drop out of school and work for private dentist as an apprentice for the remaining 18 months of dental school and get my degree, as a message to the world that I am competent, I would do it today.

He probably believes that under his “free society” he’ll be able to become a dentist without the proper qualifications. Unfortunately for him, he fails to realize that so can anyone else.

@Gray Falcon

Ah, so he longs for a return to the good ol’ days of patent medicine (i.e., snake oil) and hucksters. Let the buyer beware. If they get gulled, it’s their own darn fault. Yep, that’s healthy.

“If I could drop out of school and work for private dentist as an apprentice for the remaining 18 months of dental school and get my degree, as a message to the world that I am competent, I would do it today.”

Hell, he doesn’t want to be forced into applying for a Dentist License, even after he completes his education.

He does nerve blocks every day !!!

He could always drop out of his dental program if he doesn’t believe in professional licensing and work as a pedicurist or tattoo artist. Oh sh!t..pedicurists and tattoo artists need to be licensed.

He wants to disband the TSA, so that he doesn’t have to undergo body screening before boarding a plane. He’s willing to take the risk that terrorists won’t be targeting his Podunk Ohio home…

Incidentally, most of us, despite Delysid’s insistence, acknowledge that the government has flaws that need to be corrected. For example, Delysid himself is an illustration of a critical gap in most public education. Although the teach basic literacy and arithmetic, skills vital for survival in the modern world, they fail to teach another lesson that can be just important in determining one’s success in colleges and careers: How not to be a jerk.

@Everyone

Oh my. So many blatant medical fallacies regarding fluoride to correct.

Fluoride is a medication. It is put into the public water supply with the intention of working as a medication. This is different from chlorine, which is a disinfectant. Public water fluoridation is literally mass medication, a direct contradiction to the basic principles of medicine- that medical treatment should be catered to each individual and given with their consent. This is different from food fortification, like ionized salt, which can still be purchased and consumed voluntarily (though there are still grey areas with this, but not to the same extent as public water fluoridation.)

It is an insane campaign. The mechanism of action of fluoride is topical. When the campaign first started in the late 40’s, it was thought that the mechanism of fluoride on tooth enamel was systemic, and therefore at least somewhat justified in drinking it. Those days are long gone.

Unlike iodine, which has a natural role in human biochemistry, there is no biochemical role for fluoride. It is completely unnecessary. There is no such thing as a “fluoride deficiency.” There is not even a specific mechanism for expelling fluoride salts from the body.

Mass medication with fluoride is quite possibly one of the most indefensible issues unless one outright declares “fuck human rights and medical ethics and common sense regarding the practice of medicine.”

Public water fluoridation is a direct violation of multiple segments of the Nuremberg Codes. Nearly the entire United States population has been the subject of epidemiology studies from the onset of public water fluoridation. Most people are completely unaware that they are test subjects. Minimal animal testing was conducted prior to implementing mass medication practices. There are many modals that are medically and ethically superior to putting the fluoride medication in the public water supply, such as toothpastes, varnishes, and rinses. All of these are violations of the tenets of the Nuremberg Code (which fortunately is the law of the Federal Government of the US and the vast majority, if not all state governments).

Dentists and everyone else who supports water-fluoridation are wrong. It is ethically and scientifically unacceptable.

Ron Paul is appallingly (appaulingly?) ignorant about immunization and infectious disease.

“Paul says government “should never have the power to require immunizations or vaccinations.”
The Congressman was asked “If a dangerous disease was spreading like wildfire would you change your view and require immunization in a dire situation?” Paul responded “No, I wouldn’t do it, because the person who doesn’t take the shot is the one at risk.”

http://diplomatdc.wordpress.com/2011/02/26/ron-paul-and-the-the-dangers-of-the-anti-vaccine-movement-by-gregory-hilton/

A physician with Paul’s experience should know the basics of herd immunity – and that when enough people refuse vaccines, dangerous diseases can spread – not only to the deliberately unvaccinated, but to those who can’t be vaccinated for health reasons, those too young for shots and those in whom vaccination did not (for whatever reason) result in titers effective in thwarting illness.

Ron’s statement (and similar gems) are ignorant enough for the average educated person, inexcusable for someone with his training.

“Delysid uses federal loans because there are “no realistic other options”

…other than doing the ethical thing, embracing autonomy and paying his own way?

@JGC, #977:
If DenySid had his way, I’m not sure the churches would do much good. With taxes cut to the bone or flattened, would there still be an exemption for charitable/religious donations? And would houses of worship keep their tax exemptions?

@lilady

You still aren’t getting it. You aren’t even trying to comprehend a point of view different from your lunacy. Every comment you makes regarding my beliefs and libertarianism is blatantly wrong. Shame on everyone else for not correcting her. I’ll go after people who are spouting blatant insanity on the DailyPaul, yet no one here is saying anything that isn’t directed at me.

Guess what lilady, I OPPOSE STATE MEDICAL LICENSES. I don’t, however, oppose private licenses. But a private organization should not (and without the guns of the State) cannot stop someone not in their organization from practicing dentistry.

The USPTA is a licensing organization for tennis professionals. Joining the organization and passing their tests is helpful for gaining credibility in the tennis world, but anyone can teach tennis in the market if they don’t like the organization. Or they can join the competing PTA organization. Competition does not inhibit the quality of tennis, but the opposite. It improves it.

Medicine needs more competition.

I don’t understand what is so hard to understand. It’s one thing to disagree, but lilady has demonstrated over and over again to be totally clueless about the principles and arguments for classical liberalism.

People were cheering me on when I challenged Ginger Taylor on her misinformation. Now where is my support when I challenge the Ginger Taylor of RI, lilady for her flagrant misinformation? Does the mob not self-evaluate?

@Old Rockin Dave

I think it’s great that religious organizations are exempt from taxes. The problem is that everyone is not exempt, as they should be.

Do you think you are moral for wanting to impose taxes on others? LOL

Did you really just say that you don’t want anyone to have the means for preventing a person from practicing medicine (or dentistry) – regardless of the situation?

So, you’d have no standards whatsoever?

What kind of idiot are you?

Oh yeah, and once again, please point of a historical reference where your “theory” was tried & found to be successful…..

@ Todd W. Why would Delysid do the honorable thing and finance his own education…when he can sponge off the taxpayer-financed Federal education loan programs?

Delysid…Tax protester or tax resistor? (Both types are mentioned in Delysid’s favorite YouTube source “Freedom to Fascism”). Every case heard in every jurisdiction has been tossed and ruled as frivolous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_protester

@ Dangerous Bacon:

“The Congressman was asked “If a dangerous disease was spreading like wildfire would you change your view and require immunization in a dire situation?” Paul responded “No, I wouldn’t do it, because the person who doesn’t take the shot is the one at risk.”

Yeah, screw the babies and children whose parents refuse to vaccinate their kids because they are a$$holes who are ignorant about basic science.

Ron Paul is right. Those who are unvaccinated pose a minimal risk to the rest of the community.

Statist progressives can’t even get their demands of authoritarianism straight. They oppose homeschooling and then oppose unvaccinated children who would have been homeschooled from attending public school. Which one do you want? Authoritarnism just for the sake of authoritarianism? Government policy is right even when it contradicts itself?

This kind of hypocrisy is what drives me (and other libertarians) nuts. If I seem like a jerk, it is because I have been listening to the same irrational arguments over and over again.

But I’m the one who is hypocritical? LOL

@Lawrence

Are you and lilady related? You both exude a kind of stupidity that seems to me to be genetic.

Do you even read what I write and at least make an attempt to comprehend it or do you just skim it and substitute in your own gibberish strawman?

I SUPPORT PRIVATE LICENSES AND STANDARDS.

I’m not a dictator. It’s not my business what other people do.

All hail the keyboard warriors trying to control society through the arbitrary authority of the government.

How would you know a private license has any meaning? There could very well be several private licensing firms, some of them quite prominent, who will sell you one for money, and consumers can’t be expected to track them all. This is certainly true for several branches of alternative medicine, where people have gotten licenses for house pets and infants. Why should mainstream medicine be any different?

@Gray – Delsyid can’t keep his own arguments straight, much less answer simple questions.

Basically, he supports the same model for “buy-your-own-diploma” education for modern medical practice….yeah, that would turn out really well…

Again, please show us where these theories have been put into practice and found to be successful?

Arguing in absolutes again just shows how hollow his arguments really are.

@Gray Falcon

How do you know who makes the best cell phones? A did a Google search for “best cell phones” and I came up with the following reviews and critics just on the first page.

CNET
Digitaltrends
PC World
TechRadar
Technland

and so on.

I found Orac’s blog because I was looking up information about alternative medicine. It’s one of the first sources on Google for a good portion of alternative medicine topics.

Mainstream medicine should have more competition with private licenses. This is my entire point. Why should the State have a monopoly on it?

If evidence-based medicine is truly the best (and obviously I believe that this is undeniably true) why would you have any doubts about it dominating the free market?

If I seem like a jerk, it is because I have been listening to the same irrational arguments over and over again.

Weird because we’ve been listening to your same admittedly irrational arguments, but nobody in this thread comes off as more of a jerk than you. Wonder why that is?

Those who are unvaccinated pose a minimal risk to the rest of the community.

Are you serious? Tell that to one of the 9120 people who got Pertussis in CA in 2010 largely due to unvaccinated children.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24082000

Dentists and everyone else who supports water-fluoridation are wrong. It is ethically and scientifically unacceptable.

So are you in favor of the government removing flouride from water in areas where the natural concentration is equivalent to the recommended supplemental dose?

Ron Paul is right. Those who are unvaccinated pose a minimal risk to the rest of the community.

How do you know that? What data do you have that this is true?

Delysid: How do you know those cell phone reviews weren’t paid for by the companies who make cell phones? The fact that you’re willing to believe anything you read on the Internet marks you as someone too unsophisticated to talk about political theory.

The State is accountable to voters. The reason they have a “monopoly” is because we have a means of dealing with them if they become corrupt.

I strongly suspect Delysid is nowhere near as good as he thinks he is. Dentistry requires critical thinking and patience, he has neither. Getting through college requires humility and a willingness to learn, he has neither. All he can do is stamp his feet like a small child and demand things he has never earned.

@AdamG

Yes, naturally occurring fluoride should be removed. Tens of millions of people worldwide suffer from skeletal fluorosis worldwide because of this. We shouldn’t be drinking fluoride in naturally fluoridated water just as we shouldn’t be drinking arsenic in naturally arsenated water. There is no reason to drink fluoride. It has no positive health effects other than its tpical role in hardening dental enamel. Hydrogen fluoride (produced from gastric acid) is quite nasty to enzyme function and calcium fluoride is not easily removed from the body.

Did you actually read the journal you linked? The resurgence has been widely attributed to waning acellular immunity and the conclusion was vaccine rejection may have been 1 of several factors.

“largely due.”

Yeah way to spin that.

The resurgence has been widely attributed to waning acellular immunity and the conclusion was vaccine rejection may have been 1 of several factors.

Um, no. If you had actually read beyond the abstract, you would’ve seen that NME clusters were the largest contributing factor to the overall model. Nobody claims that NMEs are the sole contributing factor to the outbreak. I know this is hard for you to understand, because Epidemiological models are complicated, and you believe complicated models are false because they are complicated.

Additionally, if you’d read the paper (or followed the literature on this issue at all) you’d know that this is just another in a long line of studies implicating NMEs in outbreaks of several different diseases across several different states. In particular see references 15, 16, 21, 27, 28, and 29.

The resurgence has been widely attributed to waning acellular immunity

I’d like to highlight the disingenuous tactic Delysid is using here. Aside from the fact that he straight-up copied and pasted the above quote from the article, it’s from a summary of the state of the knowledge on this topic before the contributions of this paper. The box literally right below says this:

What This Study Adds:
This study provides evidence of spatial and temporal clustering of NMEs and clustering of pertussis cases and suggests that geographic areas with high NME rates were also associated with high rates of pertussis in California in 2010.

And you accuse me of ‘spinning?’

@Gray Falcon

LOL. I thought you were showing some potential until that comment. You are correct- I currently suck at dentistry. My biggest obstacle right now to getting better is dental school. The nightmare bureaucracy of dental school can only be described as a clusterfuck. The amount of time we have to spend dealing with paperwork and red tape is astronomical. As I’ve said before I would love to drop out of school and work for a private dentist as an apprentice. Dentists learn how to do dentistry once they get the hell out of the system. The DDS is an obstacle.

I’ve tolerated a 1000 comment barrage of childish insults and I’m still getting accused as being impatient.

The State is accountable to voters? You mean those same dumbass voters who you think are too incompetent for the free-market? And I’m the one who can’t think critically? LOLOL

@AdamG

Now you are trying to accuse me of not understanding the science of vaccination or following the literature? This thread should be renamed “Delysid vs. every dishonest logical fallacy that everyone else can throw at him.”

I said non-vaxxinators pose MINIMAL threat to the vaccinated. I did not say zero.

You said “LARGELY DUE.” This journal did not say “largely due.” I copied and pasted what it said in the article because something went horribly wrong the first time you read it and when you tried to summarize it.

Yes, you are spinning it. Are we in another debate regarding the meaning of words in the English language?

It’s common knowledge among libertarians that progressives will alter the English language itself if necessary.

I must be stupid for subjecting myself to this thread.

Another sign of Delysid’s immaturity: He’s more concerned with the words used than the meanings behind them. Besides his brazen nitpicking in #1006, consider his use of the phrase “free society”. Even though he can’t prove that this anarchistic society can provide freedom to anyone (for example, people can forced to change their religion or risk being unable to find a home or a job), he still believes it is a free society because people have the right to engage in religious discrimination. It is a definition of freedom any despot will appreciate.

@Gray Falcon

Good points. Without the government enslaving we might be enslaved in a free society. We need a government to discriminate against us otherwise in a free society someone might discriminate against us. We need a government to rob us because in a free society someone might rob us.

In Orac’s insane asylum freedom actually means despotism!

Delysid, are you currently mining salt? Has your family been killed by death squads? Are you able to attend school despite being an atheist? Tyranny is not being held up to real standards. You’re not a freedom fighter, you’re just a small child whining about not getting what he wanted, willing to lie and insult people when they correct you.

News flash: Most of us do know that government corruption and inefficiency exist. You are not the very first person on planet Earth to notice them. We are working to improve things by fixing what we’ve got. You are looking to burn down everything and dance in the ashes, unaware that when you finish, you will have nowhere to sleep.

Yes, naturally occurring fluoride should be removed.

Amazing. The workings of the diseased gLibertarian mind in its full flower. I thought it was up to all those Bengalis who are going to be underwater in a few years to choose not to live in the Brahmaputra delta. Why isn’t it up to people who live in high-fluoride areas to live somewhere else? Could it be a complexion issue?

@Delysid

I’ve tolerated a 1000 comment barrage of childish insults

Says the one who has called those who disagree with him on this thread stupid, insane, self-righteous, lazy, dictators, stupid (again…that one seems to be a favorite of yours), delusional, brainwashed, Statists, despots, etc. Why not just come out and Godwin the thread by calling us Nazi fascists?

Meanwhile, reasonable questions are posed to you which you repeatedly fail to answer with anything resembling evidence or logic.

For example: give an example of Libertarian theories being implemented in the governance of a country where it has actually worked.

Or this, why do you take Federal loans instead of paying for your school yourself or seeking loans from private businesses or foundations?

And on the topic of this comment:

Those who are unvaccinated pose a minimal risk to the rest of the community.

I’d suggest you take a look at just about every outbreak of disease. Measles is a good one to look at. A single person who is unvaccinated may pose a minimal risk to the rest of the community. A small group of unvaccinated pose a greater risk. A larger cluster of unvaccinated pose quite a significant risk to the community. And with measles, it does not take a large number of unvaccinated, at all, to be a significant risk to the community. For diseases where the vaccine is less effective, the risk posed by the unvaccinated is even greater.

So Ron Paul was horribly wrong (more than just the vaccine refuser are at risk), and so are you (there is greater than minimal risk, dependent on the number of unvaccinated, the virulence of the disease, and the efficacy of the vaccine).

Now here’s a nice hypothetical for our libertarian.
Delysid, you are opposed to mandatory vaccination while you believe in strict liability. Now I suppose that, just as it is in our system today, neglect of foreseeable consequences would be a significant element in assigning liability in your utopia.
So here goes. You have a child who hasn’t been vaccinated against rubella. Infected but not yet symptomatic, he transmits the infection to a pregnant woman whose medical status doesn’t allow her to be vaccinated. She gives birth to a terribly damaged child who will need expensive care for life. You are then liable for not vaccinating your child in the face of the foreseeable consequence of your child becoming infected and spreading the infection to others who are vulnerable. If the infection your unvaccinated child spreads causes a death, you should be prosecuted for involuntary manslaughter.

The worst thing about Delysid is that he has no knowledge of what the word “freedom” means. Does he think that a Senator dreamed up the Child Labor act just to make things harder for businesses? Does he believe that the Pure Food and Drug act was a capricious whim of the moment? Does he think that the outlawing of discriminatory hiring practices was done out of malice? How can he not know the work and effort ordinary people put forth to get those laws made, so that their children could be free to be children, so that they could be free from fear of contamination, so that they could be free to work where they were able. And most disgusting of all, he dismisses their rights in the name of “freedom”.

I must be stupid for subjecting myself to this thread.

The first four words of that sentence are the most honest thing you’ve said so far.

As for the rest of it, no one’s subjecting you to anything. You keep coming back here. Go back to your sandbox of freedom with the other Ron Paul fanbois if the conversation here is not to your liking. I have to say it has been interesting watching a Paul cultist in full spate. You guys are more programmed than Scientologists.

Something that I assume is a quote from Delysid (only skimming, and I ignore him): “Yes, naturally occurring fluoride should be removed.”

Oh deer. I guess he will save money by not giving fluoride treatments. Perhaps he will embrace lots of dental woo. Perhaps he will have a thriving practice removing dental amalgams because they contain mercury!

Oh, I did notice something about “private licensing.” Yeah, I am interested to see how that works. I will note that the dentist I have been going to for thirty six years is retiring. Over the years he has changed his practices because he actually gets updated information and continuing education. I don’t know if this is related to licensing, but it does relate to his personal opinion that his patients get the best treatment.

Fortunately he has pulled in a replacement that he and his staff (which includes a couple of his family members) approved of for skill, patient interaction, ethics and similar off beat sense of humor. I don’t think they would have approved of Delysid.

Scrolls up thread and sees this: “I said non-vaxxinators pose MINIMAL threat to the vaccinated. I did not say zero.”

Oh deer. I see he does not really pay attention, nor does he know that babies under the age of one year are quite vulnerable because many vaccines are only given after they turn one year old (MMR, varicella), and others take several months of doses to be maximally protective (DTaP, Hib, IPV).

He seems to want to pick and choose his science. That is not exactly the sign of someone who is a critical thinker, it is more of someone influenced by politics more than academic rigor. That is not something you want in any kind of real medical field.

And here, we were about to welcome Delysid to Respectful Insolence, just because he posted a nice rebuttal to Ginger Taylor. Then, he starts blathering about subjects he knows nothing about.

I suppose the girls in Podunk Ohio and the denizens of The Daily Paul are impressed with the boy anarchist/”soon-to-be-a-doctor”/dentist’s apprentice, but we aren’t…color us underwhelmed with his intellectual prowess.

“I must be stupid for subjecting myself to this thread.”

(Translation)

I may (or may not), be finally flouncing off.

He seems to want to pick and choose his science. That is not exactly the sign of someone who is a critical thinker, it is more of someone influenced by politics more than academic rigor. That is not something you want in any kind of real medical field.

Just to bring this full circle, I’m reminded of what Delysid said to Ginger Taylor:

Science is apolitical. You are trying to politicize science and you are manipulating others using dipshit celebrities to spread your propaganda

It’s sad that he can’t recognize when he himself makes the same mistake. I’ve always thought that the key to skepticism is the ability to be wrong, and to be ok with being wrong. To be honest, this is a trait that I didn’t fully understand until graduate school, which in many ways is designed to put you in scenarios where you’re wrong all the time. I wish Delysid was able to go a few rounds with a thesis committee, I wonder if that would change his perspective on how to construct and defend logical arguments.

Chris, I take out mercury amalgam restorations based on radiographic interpretation and clinical examination because there is often rampant recurrent caries pulpal and interproximal to them. I will not not place them in my dental practice because they are hideously unaesthetic and no longer superior in longevity to composite or ceramic when they are placed correctly and maintained with adequate oral hygiene. It is also not fair to my staff to expose them to the mercury vapors released during the setting and placement of the amalgam restoration. Old school dentists had a life expectancy significantly shorter than the general population thanks to decades of exposure to various chemicals.

This is not my opinion.

But of course I am a quack now apparently because I oppose mandatory vaccibations. Measles has a mortality rate of 0.3% but we must all panic and demand for unethical authritarianism to save us.

Statism. It’s such a great idea that it must be mandatory.

I SUPPORT PRIVATE LICENSES AND STANDARDS.

But not meaningful private licenses or standards, since you also believe failing to be privately licensed and/or failing to adhere to private standards should not stop anyone from practicing dentistry.

A license that isn’t required to engage in the licensed activity isn’t actually a license.

Some silly dental student: “This is not my opinion.’

Provided without any kind of citation. Yep, he is a dental quack.

“Measles has a mortality rate of 0.3% but we must all panic and demand for unethical authritarianism to save us. ”

Why is that acceptable when it is easily preventable? You do know that is thirty deaths out of a hundred cases of measles. Multiply that by four million children born in the USA each year, and that means you are okay dokay with about 13000 kids in the USA dying from measles each year (remember the population of the USA has tripled since the early 1960s). Before the first not so great vaccines were introduced in the early 1960s almost every kid under age fifteen got measles.

You are not just an idiot, you are evil.

You are correct JGC. I think anyone should should be able to practice dentistry without permission from the State. This goes for any other type of medicine. I also think people should be free to build sell own cars and airplanes. And create and sell their own smart phones. None of this should require a State license.

In the current system the State protects shitty doctors. I’m sure you have read Orac’s rants about medical licensing boards.

Oh, great I screwed up the math. Never mind.

But still if we assume every child gets measles by age fifteen and .3% will die….

… that means 4,000,000 kids born per year (new susceptibles) * .3/100 (0.3% deaths per cases) = 12000 measles deaths per year. How is that a good thing?

Hmmm, by some strange time machine miracle the boy anarchist/”soon-to-be-doctor”/dental apprentice who is not licensed posts as though he actually is a licensed dentist and actually has a dental practice….

“Chris, I take out mercury amalgam restorations based on radiographic interpretation and clinical examination because there is often rampant recurrent caries pulpal and interproximal to them. I will not not place them in my dental practice because they are hideously unaesthetic and no longer superior in longevity to composite or ceramic when they are placed correctly and maintained with adequate oral hygiene. It is also not fair to my staff to expose them to the mercury vapors released during the setting and placement of the amalgam restoration. Old school dentists had a life expectancy significantly shorter than the general population thanks to decades of exposure to various chemicals.”

Bullsh!t

Prove that composite or ceramic restorations are longer lasting that amalgam fillings.

Prove that “your staff” is exposed to dangerous mercury vapors.

“This is not my opinion.”

Whose opinion are you referring to. Those opinions are not the opinions of the American Dental Association, the World Health Association and other dental licensing groups throughout the world…

http://www.ada.org/1741.aspx

So much for the safety of composite dental fillings in pediatric populations.

Tsk, tsk…Delysid. You ought to go to reliable sources, instead of relying on Joe Mercola and Mark Geier.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2012/07/11/peds.2011-3374

Dental Composite Restorations and Psychosocial Function in Children

Nancy N. Maserejian, ScDa,
Felicia L. Trachtenberg, PhDa,
Russ Hauser, MD, ScD, MPHb,c,d,
Sonja McKinlay, PhDa,
Peter Shrader, MAa,
Mary Tavares, DMD, MPHe, and
David C. Bellinger, PhD, MScb,f,g

+ Author Affiliations

aDepartment of Epidemiology, New England Research Institutes, Watertown, Massachusetts;
bDepartments of Environmental Health and
cEpidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts;
dVincent Obstetrics and Gynecology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts;
eThe Forsyth Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts;
fDepartment of Neurology, Children’s Hospital Boston, Boston, Massachusetts; and
gHarvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Resin-based dental materials may intraorally release their chemical components and bisphenol A. The New England Children’s Amalgam Trial found that children randomized to amalgam had better psychosocial outcomes than those assigned to composites for posterior tooth restorations. The objective of this study was to examine whether greater exposure to dental composites is associated with psychosocial problems in children.

METHODS: Analysis of treatment-level data from the New England Children’s Amalgam Trial, a 2-group randomized safety trial comparing amalgam with the treatment plan of bisphenol A-glycidyl methacrylate (bisGMA)-based composite and urethane dimethacrylate–based polyacid-modified composite (compomer), among 534 children aged 6 to 10 years at baseline. Psychosocial function at follow-up (n = 434) was measured by using the self-reported Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC-SR) and parent-reported Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL).

RESULTS: Children with higher cumulative exposure to bisGMA-based composite had poorer follow-up scores on 3 of 4 BASC-SR global scales: Emotional Symptoms (β = 0.8, SE = 0.3, P = .003), Clinical Maladjustment (β = 0.7, SE = 0.3, P = .02), and Personal Adjustment (β = –0.8, SE = 0.2, P = .002). Associations were stronger with posterior-occlusal (chewing) surfaces, where degradation of composite was more likely. For CBCL change, associations were not statistically significant. At-risk or clinically significant scores were more common among children with greater exposure for CBCL Total Problem Behaviors (16.3% vs 11.2%, P-trend = .01) and numerous BASC-SR syndromes (eg, ≥13 vs 0 surface-years, Interpersonal Relations 13.7% vs 4.8%, P-trend = .01). No associations were found with compomer, nor with amalgam exposure levels among children randomized to amalgam.

CONCLUSIONS: Greater exposure to bisGMA-based dental composite restorations was associated with impaired psychosocial function in children, whereas no adverse psychosocial outcomes were observed with greater urethane dimethacrylate–based compomer or amalgam treatment levels.

Guess what lilady, I OPPOSE STATE MEDICAL LICENSES. I don’t, however, oppose private licenses. But a private organization should not (and without the guns of the State) cannot stop someone not in their organization from practicing dentistry.

*^*
O^O
Seriously?? I’ve had three operations in my life. The first was to fix an inguinal hernia when I was in preprimary. The second was to have my wisdom teeth removed and the third was to fix my nose after I had a car crash. In each operation, I was given anaesthesia to render me unconscious and then I was cut with blades.
There is a very good reason why we demand that medical practitioners undergo years of study and constant oversight. The human body, and by extension medicine, is incredibly complicated. If a surgeon or anaesthetist had been incompetent, I would be dead or disfigured. What’s stopping a private board becoming the oversight version of a diploma mill?

You are correct- I currently suck at dentistry.

Paging David Dunning and Justin Kruger.

I’ve said before I would love to drop out of school and work for a private dentist as an apprentice.

What’s stopping medical practitioners from abusing that by only taking apprentices from rich families in return for kickbacks ar “gifts”? It’s been pointed out to you on this very thread that that happened before and that we now have oversight from multiple doctors to prevent that from happening again.

@ Julian Frost: I’m beginning to believe we are dealing with a Thingy-type troll, who claimed to have a (an imaginary) career as a health care provider. After a while you get a feel for the attention-seeking trolls who have serious emotional disorders and/or are burnouts from drugs.

We already know how measles affected healthy kids in the developed world, before the single antigen, then the multiple antigen MMR vaccines were licenses, in terms of morbidity and mortality…and how many millions of children have died in Africa and other underdeveloped areas of the world, because they were malnourished and did not have access to clinics and hospitals, once they contracted measles:

http://www.chop.edu/service/vaccine-education-center/a-look-at-each-vaccine/mmr-measles-mumps-and-rubella-vaccine.html

“Measles is a disease that is caused by a virus. Symptoms include fever, conjunctivitis (“pink eye”), and a red, pinpoint rash that starts on the face and spreads to the rest of the body. The rash lasts about five days. However, the virus can also cause pneumonia, a consequence that can lead to death. Although some people don’t think of pneumonia as a common consequence of measles, it is actually quite common. Some older children infected with measles suffer from encephalitis (an infection of the brain), which, in many cases, causes permanent brain damage.”

(My older cousin contracted measles and was left with permanent neurological sequelae, before measles vaccines were licensed)

And…

“The effectiveness of the measles vaccine has been dramatic. In 1962 (one year before the first measles vaccine was made available in the United States), 4 million people were diagnosed with measles, 48,000 were admitted to hospitals and 3,000 people died.”

Then there are the sad cases of children infected with the virus before one year of age, who years later developed SSPE and who died painful, lingering deaths…

http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/tag/sspe/

Delysid – how many economics courses have you taken?

Do you know what an externality is?

@AdamG

I know this is hard for you to understand, because Epidemiological models are complicated, and you believe complicated models are false because they are complicated.

This – externalities make economics and ethics complicated, so Delysid ignores them. He is literally a Simpleton – he can only think in the simplest of terms and flies into a rage when confronted by anyone who is capable of understanding complexity..

An anti-flouridation kook as well – crackpot bingo!

So, at the end of the day, Delsyid’s posts can be summed up with the following, “I’m not allowed to do whatever I want, when I want – thus Government is Bad, Bad, Bad…..”

Wow, what a deep thinker…..I am reminded of those young, deluded souls I would see around campus shilling for Lyndon LaRouche – so firm in their convictions that we were about to enter a state of global economic collapse and only the words of Lyndon could prevent financial catastrophe….

@Delysid

Still waiting for your responses to these:

Give an example of Libertarian notions being put into practice in the governance of a country and it actually worked.

Why do you take Federal loans rather than paying for your education out of pocket or seeking financial aid from foundations or private businesses?

In your utopic vision, what is to stop private licensing organizations from becoming, in essence, diploma mills, issuing worthless licenses to incompetents playing at being doctor or dentist?

Also, I’d just like to ask, what, in your opinion, should be the consequences of choosing not to vaccinate? If the free market is what should dictate things, then what should happen if someone refuses a vaccine for their child, who then gets sick and spreads, for example, rubella, to a pregnant woman, whose child is consequently born with congenital health issues resulting in needing lifelong medical care?

Oh, and one thing I meant to comment on earlier regarding your “how does someone choose a cell phone?” and using initial hits on Google to support your argument. If I type “alternative medicine” or “homeopathic medicine” into Google, the first page is replete with pro-altmed or pro-homeopathy sites. Using your standards, that must mean that altmed and homeopathy are valid treatments.

You are correct JGC. I think anyone should should be able to practice dentistry without permission from the State. This goes for any other type of medicine.

Anyone who wants to, without without training and without regard to competence should be free to hang out a shingle and start performing brain surgery? That’s really your idea of an improvement over the status quo?

Words fail me.

In the current system the State protects shitty doctors.

For the sake of argument let’s assume that’s to some degree true: the solution to the problem wouldn’t be to create a system where nobody attempts to protect anyone, Delysid.

Ron Paul is right. Those who are unvaccinated pose a minimal risk to the rest of the community.

This sort of idiotic claim irritates me on a personal level because that “minimal risk” put my son in the hospital for several weeks and almost killed him. A pertussis vaccine safety scare in the UK in the late 70s and early 80s reduced vaccine coverage enough to allow large outbreaks to occur. My son couldn’t be vaccinated for medical reasons, and was infected, leaving him coughing until he turned blue and fighting for breath. He was lucky, several other children died – one outbreak alone resulted in 102,500 reported cases and an estimated 36 fatalities. The vaccine scare turned out to be unfounded.

Without the government enslaving we might be enslaved in a free society.

If you truly believe you are a slave, not only are you delusional, but you also deeply insult the many people on this planet who truly are slaves, not to mention the millions who have died as slaves in misery over millennia. You haven’t the faintest clue how coddled you are and to what degree you owe your comfort and freedom to your government, as flawed and inefficient as it no doubt is. If you don’t like paying taxes, move to a part of the planet where you don’t have to. No one is stopping you, are they?

I’m going to try to understand how Delysid’s ‘free market forces’ would address the problem of incompetent doctors/dentists in a society where a license to practice was unnecessary. The most likely mechanism I can see is:

Doctor A is not competent (i.e., is marketing an inferior product).

Dr. B is competent (markets a superior product).

Competition results in Dr. B capturing the greater market share, eventually driving Dr A’s inferior product from the marketplace..

The problem is that this mechanism is in place right now–thefree market forces will operate whether or not a barrrier to entry (in the form of licensing or certification) is also in place. What licensing requirements will do, however, is prevent the evidence of a physician’s or dentist’s “product inferiority” from taking the form of dead, crippled or toothless former clients.

I presume Delysid believes that if state certification of doctors were eliminated, then some combination of the following would happen:
– If certification were desired by the public at large (or by insurance companies that provide medical or malpractice insurance) some private companies would arise to perform this function. This would be sort of like Underwriters’ Laboratories or IEEE. Different people (or insurers) would place different values on services performed by doctors certificated by different companies and those not certificated at all.
– If data were desired by the insurers or public, then private organizations would collect information and provide ratings which could be used to make informed decisions. This would be not unlike Angie’s List or Consumer Reports or Yelp.
– While anyone could call him/her/itself a doctor or dentist and open a practice, the incompetent would be weeded out quickly by a series of bad Yelp reviews or a decision by insurers to blackball them – or by bankruptcy due to lawsuits from injured patients.
– People would need to do some research before picking a doctor or dentist to ensure they were competent, not merely a good fit and in their insurer’s network. This could involve reviewing the certifications (if any), education (if any), apprenticeships (if any), and any patient reviews.

In short, buying professional services from a doctor or dentist would be just like buying a personal computer.

People would need to do some research before picking a doctor or dentist to ensure they were competent, not merely a good fit and in their insurer’s network. This could involve reviewing the certifications (if any), education (if any), apprenticeships (if any), and any patient reviews.

And this is still no guarantee. People lie about their education and qualifications. Dodgy companies often use similar sounding names to reputable firms. Companies have been busted posting favourable reviews of their products/services. Finally, it can take a long time to weed out incompetent/dishonest suppliers/providers.
I’d rather have what we have now.

The apprenticeship system in American medicine was one of the reasons smart doctor wannabe’s went to Europe for their medical training in the late 19th/early 20th century. The results of the American system were inferior and European medical schools were widely acknowledged to be the best.

I refer you to Bleed, Blister and Purge, Gangrene or Glory,or the first few chapters of Barry’s The Great Influenza.

One could argue that this preference for European medical schools was an indication of the market at work, but unfortunately presence of more qualified MDs in the US did not succeed in driving the badly-trained ones out as demand far exceeded supply.

@MO’B

To add to your summation, if you fall for slick advertising or don’t have the requisite expertise to adequately evaluate the quality, well, you should have educated yourself better. If you wind up dead or permanently injured because you were not able to determine that the physician or dentist was incompetent, then that’s your fault. The scammer or incompetent is not at fault. Buyer beware.

Another mechanism I hear touted in addition to market forces is the threat of lawsuits. However, that relies upon government enacting regulations, which Delysid has already shown he’s averse to. And we already have examples of individuals who are not deterred in the least by the threat of lawsuits, so we know that does not work to ensure quality providers.

Shay:

The apprenticeship system in American medicine was one of the reasons smart doctor wannabe’s went to Europe for their medical training in the late 19th/early 20th century.

Then there were the folks who would take a few course, call themselves doctors and charge folks for lots of dreck. The most famous being the John Brinkley.
Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam
by Pope Brock is a great read.

“People would need to do some research before picking a doctor or dentist to ensure they were competent, not merely a good fit and in their insurer’s network. This could involve reviewing the certifications (if any), education (if any), apprenticeships (if any), and any patient reviews.”
This does not work well in a situation where you have no choice. If you are in the military, or on Medicaid, or incarcerated, or already in a hospital and having complications, or cut out of your burning car at 3AM, you have to hope that whoever you draw meets at least minimum competency standards, and not depend on someone’s fear of potential lawsuits to get adequate treatment.

I’d rather have what we have now.

And in fact, what we have now is all of this (Angie’s list does include physician reviews, there exist multiple other rating services online that specialize in health care providers, there exist multiple non-governmental (i.e. private) professional associations such as the AMA, AAP, APA, FAAP, etc. whose members must demonstrate appropriate training and valid certification, etc.) plus licensing requirements to prevent individuals from falsely claiming mastery in a medical profession they do not in fact possess.

All eliminating licensing would do is strip a layer of protection (and the primary layer at that) away.

@JGC

And we already have one shining example that an AAP fellowship affiliation is not a guarantee of a quality physician.

With repect to lawsuits after-the-fact being a solution, how would a jury possilby find physician to have failed to meet standard-of-care in a system where define standards of care either were not be defined, or where multiple private agenices defined multiple conflicting standards of care?

@105 should read “a system where standards of care were not defined or multiple private agencies defined multiple conflicting standards of care”

I run a garment factory. I want to pay children between 10 and 13 years of age 40 cents an hour to work 12 hour days cutting fabric, running sergers, hand-sewing garments, etc.

I’ll be a reasonable employer—they’ll get the same 15 minute break every 3rd hour, plus 30 minutes for lunch (if they’ve brought any with them) adult workers do. (All bathroom visits are of course expected to be done during these breaks, not on company time.)

By doing so I predict I can undersell competitors by 35 to 45%, therefore profit!

Should society erect any barriers to my managing my business and employees in this manner? If not, how would free market forces address this situation?

(I suppose I should first ask if, from a Libertarian perspective, this situation would even be considered a problem that needs to be addressed.)

@JGC – sounds like a Libertarian Dream….if the kids don’t like it, they can find work elsewhere.

It is an insane campaign. The mechanism of action of fluoride is topical. When the campaign first started in the late 40′s, it was thought that the mechanism of fluoride on tooth enamel was systemic, and therefore at least somewhat justified in drinking it. Those days are long gone.

Whoops. (This isn’t the paper that I was trying to remember, but I’m in a hurry.) A moment’s thought should have revealed the possibility that systemic fluoride might, you know, affect the concentration in saliva. Or that data between the introduction of water fluoridation and commonplace use of topical fluoride might be relevant.

You are correct- I currently suck at dentistry. My biggest obstacle right now to getting better is dental school. The nightmare bureaucracy of dental school can only be described as a clusterf[]ck.

Yah, I’m still wondering why you said you had 18 months left at what should be the start of your third year.

The amount of time we have to spend dealing with paperwork and red tape is astronomical.

You’ve still failed to explain this claim in any coherent fashion. If your dental school is taking Medicaid patients, then I imagine somebody knows perfectly well how to bill them. On the increasingly wobbly assumption that you’re not simply making things up, the only explanation I’m left with is that this is essentially a practical component of your training and that you’re really bad at it.

Perhaps you imagine that you wouldn’t have to deal with insurance companies were you in private practice. Frankly, I suspect most people would consider this to be a value-added service. I’m certainly going to choose a pharmacy that bills my insurance directly over one that tells me to do it myself because they’re too stupid to figure out, for example.

I truly don’t understand why anyone would consider fluoridation of water to be mass medication but not chlorination of water. Both have beneficial effects on public health that are not dependent on systemic effects (though that’s debatable in the case of fluoride, see Narad’s last comment). The ingestion of both fluoride and chlorine in water at the target concentrations carry a tiny risk, in the case of fluoride mostly cosmetic, and considerable benefits. I don’t see a huge difference in principle between them apart from semantics.

Besides, no one is forced to drink fluoridated water. You can buy unfluoridated water from a different supplier e.g. fluoride-free bottled water which you will find is sold at a very low price at your friendly local supermarket. You could also dig your own well, which I believe is quite popular in the US, or get a filter that will remove it. Isn’t that the libertarian way?

If anyone thinks that no state has ever run on libertarian principles, think again: the apartheid-era Republic of South Africa was. In fact, I can’t think of a more libertarian society, not even the Confederate States of America.
The white South African population wasn’t discriminating; they were merely exercising their right not to associate with other kinds of people.
Nor were they hoarding all the best things for themselves; they were merely exercising their rights to the property and wealth they had won for themselves through hard work, prudence, and more and better firearms (the possession of which was also their right).
You just have to look at it the right (or Right) way. Coincidentally, the South African currency was called…wait for it…the rand. And their great hero was popularly known as Oom, or Uncle, Paul.

Both have beneficial effects on public health that are not dependent on systemic effects (though that’s debatable in the case of fluoride, see Narad’s last comment).

I get the impression that fluoride → stomach → saliva is still considered to be a “topical” effect.

Anyway, this (PDF) isn’t what I was trying to remember either, but it was in the results the last time I wondered about this, which must have been around five years ago. A related question that comes back is the clearance time for fluoride-based dentifrices, which was shorter than I expected.

The point of this hazy reverie is that the conclusion I eventually came to is that the relatively steady boost due to fluoridated water, even if modest, was probably worthwhile in terms of nudging things toward 0.04 ppm salivary concentration.

Of course, I also let Yankee imperialism get the best of me and forgot about fluoridated salt, which would seem to go a fair way to plainly demonstrating that ingestion works just fine. The full text of PMID 16379137 is readily available if one searches on the title.

Perhaps D. also files such simple research under “mountains of paperwork” or something. In that vein, I’ll go ahead and point out PMID 16263039, which happily lies in the spooky realm of econometric data and employs the incomprehensible voodoo of “Monte Carlo simulations.”

Narad,

I get the impression that fluoride → stomach → saliva is still considered to be a “topical” effect.

That is also my impression, though it is in a gray area of semantics, in my opinion (it’s that inside/outside distinction again, though this time biological). It’s interesting that continual exposure to fluoride is required to maintain the advantages of fluoride.

I wonder how essential fluoride is to normal bone and tooth development. Perhaps it’s like aluminum, in that no one is ever completely without it, so it’s hard to tell.

ORD:

If anyone thinks that no state has ever run on libertarian principles, think again: the apartheid-era Republic of South Africa was.

I hope you are being sarcastic. Speaking as somebody who grew up under apartheid (I was born in 1976) I can tell you that that is not true.

Narad you are a dumbass. Your attempts at a superfluous vocabulary just makes it even more pitiful.

So you know more about dentistry and dental school than someone who does it? I’m glad you took a break from autofellatio to impart your wisdom on to us.

Perhaps if you learned how to interpret a calender you could use your genius to count to 18, starting from this month and ending at April, 2015.

You have no idea what red tape and paperwork is involved. I’m not going to get into it because I already spend way too much of my life dealing with it. We spend more time filling out paperwork and navigating the labyrinth of the bureaucracy than we do working in a patient’s mouth and diagnosing.

Pulling down your pants and operating orally on your own penis might be a simple process, but it takes several hours of paperwork and other bureaucracy compliance just to do a cleaning. A minimum of 9 signatures need to be obtained by 6 people and over a dozen forms need to be filled out and a patient has to wait 2-3 hours before an extraction can be conducted. Depending on the bureaucratic congestion this process can take 4 hours. In private practice, which still has it’s own necessary bureaucratic requirements, the non-medical issues takes only a few minutes.

But of course Narad, god of his own genitalia, with no experience in dentistry whatsoever, knows more than I do.

Also, the mechanism of action of fluoride for erupted teeth is almost predominantly topical. This contradicts the scientific opinions of the 1940’s and 50’s when the public water fluoridation campaign was initiated. It’s not justified to deliver a topical medication systemically. The prevailing attitude among public health nanny staters is that “something is better than nothing if someone has no other fluoride exposure even if systemic delivery is far more inefficient and effective than topical delivery.” I reject, from a scientific and ethical standpoint, this attitude.

It would be like giving systemic chemotherapy to a patient with superficial basal cell carcinoma because he can’t or won’t get a surgical excision or topical chemotherapy.

You really know how to convince an audience, don’t you?

In a way, you’re exactly the type of person who would embrace the libertarian philosophy – because you obviously don’t give a damn for anyone else, do you?

I’m going to have to run #1057 past my friend Sue (who supervises the county health department’s dental clinic) for a reality check on Monday.

American liberalism: “I care so much about other people that I’m willing to make the ultimate sacrifice and use the government to give them your money and make decisions on their behalf. I’m such a compassionate humanitarian because I vote and support the government.”

@ Lawrence: I told you we are dealing with a Thingy-type troll…who is definitely NOT “a-soon-to-be-doctor” or a dental student.

Ha, ha. I worked in a public health clinic which provided dental care to Medicaid patients and none of what the potty-mouthed troll stated, is true.

Also, the mechanism of action of fluoride for erupted teeth is almost predominantly topical.

Perhaps you missed the part where that was pointed out. The simple fact that you are not able to muster a single rational comment about either the material presented or, indeed, to say anything at all about fluoride kinetics, I think, in conjunction with the still unexplained six-month term boundary mismatch, makes it highly unlikely that you are a third- or fourth-year dental student in good standing, if you ever were at all.

Quick: One nerve block has several approaches, one of them uncommon in normal practice. Identify the nerve, name the approaches, and specify what the indication is for the uncommon one.

@lilady

Now you are calling me a liar? You can take your ignorant raging idiocy and fuck yourself in your your senile, menopausal cunt. I just wish I this was in person so I look you right in the eyes and smirk in your rhytidal face when I tell you to suck my potent dick.

I might be an asshole, but I am not a liar.

@Narad

I’d tell you to fuck yourself as well but it is obvious you do this too much already.

Why don’t you ask someone who actually works for a dental school.

Better yet, why don’t we see what information OSU provides? Or look at the statements of a former dean?

“We are training dentists to understand diversity, be prepared to provide treatment to underprivileged populations and understand the problems experienced by this patient population,” said Dr. Jan E. Kronmiller, Dean, The Ohio State University College of Dentistry. “Loss of Medicaid support for these adults would have a significant impact on our curriculum.”

Perhaps you’d like to explain this discrepancy.

I’d tell you to f{}ck yourself as well but it is obvious you do this too much already.

You lose.

1066: Proof that there are no female libertarians except for Ayn Rand (and she wanted to be a man) and why the best response to ‘I’m a libertarian’ is going far far away. I’ve never met one libertarian who actually, deep in his shriveled little heart believed that women are human, and really, it’s best to assume they[re all assholes, as you won’t be disappointed in them.

Orac: Can you shut down this thread and quarantine the asshole please?

Delysid: “Now you are calling me a liar?”

Well it has been obvious for a long time that you just make stuff up. Starting with your odd renditions of history since the first of October when the comments were in the 300s.

I think my favorite was the depiction of Accuweather as something more than a media company that does not rely on the National Weather Service, when I had actually asked “Do explain what private company has taken over weather forecasting, which includes launching satellites.” Take note of the last two words in the sentence.

Which the main reason I have been mostly scanning the comment thread and skipping your lunacy.

@Narad

Explain to me the proper procedure for autofellatio. What us the ideal pressure to place on the testivles? What are the indications for digital insertion rectally? Is it contraindicated to ingest sildenafil and inhale alkyl nitrites?
Perhaps you would like to explain.

[Lilady: “..potty mouthed troll..”]
Delysid: #1066.
Oh my, you really are going to have a great “chair side” manner, aren’t you?

Explain to me the proper procedure for autofellatio.

You have had over an hour to respond to a straightforward test of your claim that nerve blocks are a day-in, day-out thing for you. Even if this is one that you’re not familiar with, that is plenty of time* for you to have simply consulted the resources that any bona fide dental student would have to hand or be readily able to locate online.

You then could have dashed any skepticism and happily been smug about it. Instead, you had a complete meltdown, leaving nothing but a puddle of fetid goo. I’d lay odds that some other commenter answers this before you out of sheer boredom with your tantrums.

So, in case the “superfluous vocabulary” was too much for you, all signs suggest that yes, you are a liar.

* L-rd knows it didn’t take me much longer two weeks ago.

@PoliticalPig

Censorhip is the weapon of the brainless. If you are offended that is your problem. Oh the irony of you appealing to a man to silence my opinions while you spew sexist and bigoted hate speech.

I pegged the Tidy Bowl Boy weeks ago, for the phony “soon-to-be-a-doctor”/”dental student”, he professes to be.

I nailed him up-thread about his libertarian views, his purported financial aid loans paid for with my Income Tax dollars, his b.s. about removal of amalgam fillings/replacement with composite fillings (see my posts at #s 1025 and 1026) and his most recent deranged posts about the paperwork involved with dental work for Medicaid recipients.

Let’s not forget the real students at OSU School of Dentistry, who are concerned about childrens’ dental health:

https://www.facebook.com/OSUDentistry

“I might be an asshole, but I am not a liar.”

You’re an asshole AND a liar, Delysid.

Note that the only “sexist and bigoted hate speech” on this thread was Delysid’s, unless you count the bizarre definition created by right-wing extremists. Also, in Delysid’s society, what’s to prevent someone who was offended from challenging the offender to a saber duel, or simply beating him with a stick?

Here’s everything I know about nerve anaesthesia

Keep squirming, babycakes. Do you think your fellow travelers from the Daily Paul would appreciate a heads-up about the spectacle?

Gray Falcon: Saber duels sounds like something I could get behind.

Delysid: Boy, I sure got your number, didn’t I? The fact is, you hijacked this thread, and steered it so far off course the only option is to scuttle it. I guess you don’t subscribe to the theory that sauce for the goose is fitting for the gander; since you were the one who led with an attack on lilady, I just responded in kind. Hope you enjoy being sad and alone for life, bub.

@Julian Frost:
I both was and wasn’t being sarcastic. Some Afrikaners defended their crimes in terms that were not very different from some of the things libertarians in the US say.

“I might be an asshole, but I am not a liar.”
The correct responses to the above are “Yes, you are” and “Yes, you are.”
You are also a sexist sack of shit, who resorts to name-calling and general nastiness when you can’t defend the garbage you spout.
As for autofellatio, I suggest that you’re doing it wrong. You need to wrap your lips around the tailpipe of an auto and inhale deeply. People will be far more complimentary to you than they are now – “De mortuis nihil nisi bonum.”
You are obviously a sheltered child who has not yet heard of a place known as the real world. Prepare for a shock when you encounter it. It will not be very nice to someone with your views and behavior. I predict that within five years of leaving dental school you will be asking your clients “Do you want fries with that?”. Your attitude will probably cost you that career too.

Frankly, I think Delysid’s banking on getting banned in order to trumpet the “they’re trying to silence the libertarian TRUTH!” meme.

Given than Delysid is failing to actually bother anyone with run-of-the-mill, unimaginative profanity, there seems to be little need to ban such a gadfly. The thread will eventually close on its own — late December, if I recall Orac’s 90-day rule correctly.

Thanks guys (and pgp) for coming to my defense, but it is not necessary.

Sad to say, that Delysid is a troll who has some serious emotional issues. When confronted with the bare truth for all the deranged lies he has spouted here for weeks, he cannot or will not “man up” and resorts to spouting filth.

Meanwhile, I’ve been having some fun with the Dachelbot and her cronies here…

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/16/rate-of-autism-rises-in-us-hits-plateau-in-uk/

@Everyone

LMFAO at all of you. Nice predictions about my future failure. I don’t understand the “real world?” Right. I better leave my country club sometime and take a safari through the lalaland that you all apparently occupy. I guess that is what I did in this thread. Progressive elitist whackjobs are everywhere but this blog has the worst infection I’ve ever seen. It’s even worse than Krugpot’s Conscience of a Liberal. I read Orac’s blog months before I ever made a comment because I read the moronic ramblings of the people here and didn’t bother. Go ahead and ban me. I’m getting bored anyway. You all can go fuck yourselves (except Orac).

Hide behind your anonymity and use the mob mentality to make yourselves feel better about your own hypocrisies and failures. I’ve had some hearty laughs at your expenses.

*double take* Did Delysid just say that everything he knows about nerve blocks is on a site about how to suck one’s own genitals? Logically that would mean that when he does this “several times a week”…well, his poor patients, on a variety of levels.

Delysid illustrates the reason I can’t bring myself to vote Libertarian even though I sympathize with the “people should be able to pretty much do their own thing as long as they don’t interfere with each other” position and would like the government to be much smaller and more efficient at delivering value to the people. While I agree on principle with certain things, I also recognize that, with the people we have now and all their complexities, a Libertarian Party administration would be a clusterfeck.

@Gray Falcon:

“Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.” – Robert E. Howard

Geeze, I leave this thread for some time and it descends into madness….

Can we finally lock this, please?

ORD @ #1053:

You mentioned the Confederacy in that semi-sarcastic post about apartheid-era South Africa as being a fine example of libertarian principles in action. Now, bieng this blog’s resident American Civil War buff, I can thell you that the CSA was a miserable failure, which was fighting just as much amongst itself as it was against them damnyankees.

One thing has puzzled me: what is up with Southerners and their penchant for squabbling and fighting amongst each other? First all those antebellum pistol duels, and then they can’t get their act together during the ACW – what gave back then?

Now, bieng this blog’s resident American Civil War buff,

Them’s fightin’ words, Luke.

@Lucario:
I see that you caught my point, and I hope everyone did, that the old South Africa and the CSA both appealed to a warped version of libertarian principles, often using the same sort of language that wouldn’t sound strange coming from today’s libertarians.

From what I’ve heard, many of the arguments in favor of slavery consisted of either claiming that plantations would go under, and stating that the Federal government was overstepping it’s authority. Never mind that Northern farms ran perfectly fine without slave labor, and that the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 overstepped numerous Constitutional boundaries. As with modern libertairian arguments, they talked incessantly about prosperity and freedom, without mentioning whose prosperity and freedom they were protecting.

Well..in fairness, northern farms HAD to run without slave labor, which may have been why northern farmers were more apt to embrace technological innovations such as the McCormick reaper.

According to CW historian Bruce Catton, ante-bellum pro-slavery arguments were chiefly centered on Southern fears of an insurrection. Without the restraints imposed by the institution of slavery, newly freed slaves, it was firmly believed, would rise up and massacre their former owners.

Nat Turner did the abolition movement no favors.

A real world example of how Delysid’s private certification agencies would work, courtesy of Ron Paul (Rand Paul’s son):

Ron Paul describes himself professionally as a board certified Opthamologist. Most people would assume that meant certification by the American Board of Ophthalmology. Not so–his ABO certification lapsed in 2005.

Since then, he’s been certified by the National Board of Ophthalmology, an organization he founded and one where he is the president, his wife the vice-president, and his father-in-law secretary. (Need we mention the National Board of Ophthalmology is not recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties, the American Medical Association or the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure?)

Still, it’s sufficient to let him claim “board certified” for business purposes (i.e., attracting paying customers who think they’re getting an ABO certified physician.)

@Shay- Of course. How could I forget how much outright racism was used in support of slavery? Never mind the number of bloody revolts led by white people against white people.

Also, it appears the end of slavery is a large-scale government intervention that encouraged innovation, rather than stifled it.

@JGC- It’s pretty sad when one can be used as an example of a flaw in one’s own logic.

” I read Orac’s blog months before I ever made a comment because I read the moronic ramblings of the people here and didn’t bother. Go ahead and ban me. I’m getting bored anyway. You all can go fvck yourselves (except Orac).

Scottynuke is correct. The Troll is hoping to be banned, so that he could brag that his enlightening political viewpoints caused the banning.

(Prior comment stuck in moderation for quoting the vile Troll)

”I read Orac’s blog months before I ever made a comment because I read the moronic ramblings of the people here and didn’t bother. Go ahead and ban me. I’m getting bored anyway. You all can go f*ck yourselves (except Orac).

Scottynuke is correct. The Troll is hoping to be banned, so that he could brag that his enlightening political viewpoints caused the banning.

@Gray Falcon:

Another way to look at it is that Southerners’ terror of a slave rebellion was a tacit admission of how horrible the institution was.

“If I were treated as I treat my slaves, would I try to seek revenge? Hell, yeah!”

JGC,

Since then, he’s been certified by the National Board of Ophthalmology, an organization he founded and one where he is the president, his wife the vice-president, and his father-in-law secretary.

That reminds me of Dara O’Briain’s ‘toothiologist’ (his rant is always worth a watch).

As an aside, O’Briain’s spiel on “symptoms you should not ignore” is spot on. Just this morning I got a helpful brochure from the NHS advising me not to ignore blood in my urine. Who knew? Am I wrong to think that perhaps people who ignore symptoms like that are just natural selection in action?

@JGC – I believe Ron Paul is the father and Rand Paul is the son – I realize it is hard to tell these odious amoral asshats apart.

So, just out of curiosity, Orac, did you finally end up bringing the banhammer down on Delysid for his last fit of pique?

Woo hoo! Over 1100 comments that means that even yours truly gets free airline miles!

@ JGC:

I’m glad you included that tale to demonstrate how these folks operate- pun intended-

Rand** IIRC is the younger one and he wot set up his own
certiification board ( opthal) ; Ron was/is an OBGYN. I understand that jr also accepted US monies ( ?Medicare/Medicaid?) for eye surgeries.

-btw- the libertarian’s comments were as crude as they were vicious and desperate.

** not named for Ayn- it’s short for Randal (sic)

Delysid must have chosen to become a dentist when someone said “dental crowns” and he thought he heard “dental clowns” and said “I can do that”.
Something our toothiologist friend fails to recognize is that the standards accepted for licensing and certification in professions and trades are mostly set by private bodies. Plumbers decide who can call himself a master plumber. Physicians in the various specialties make up the certifying boards.
Here’s where his apprenticeship crashes to the ground:
you’re looking for a dentist. “Doc, where did you do your training?”
“I apprenticed under Dr. Sleazetoes in Gatorbutt, Mississippi.”
“Who trained him?”
“Dr. Bitemeister, of Cowpants, Montana.”
“And he trained…?”
“Under Dr. Thinkless, in Petomane le Mineur, in Quebec.”
“I haven’t heard of any of them. But Dr. Smilegood across the street went to NYU Dental. That I’ve heard of. See ya ’round, Doc.”
Waiting for a few brave souls to try the new dentist in town, who was trained by who-knows-who in who-knows-where, and who might or might not be capable and up to date doesn’t cut it. Sure, there are bad professionals, and there are state regents and professional conduct boards that fail at their jobs, but at least there’s someone setting at least minimal standards and making some attempt to enforce them. If all certification was provided by completely private bodies without the force of law, the bad apples will just thumb their noses at them. Then who will stop the incompetent or criminal practitioner before he or she kills or maims?

I’m a toothiologist now? Weird. I guess if people accuse me of being a quack and lying about studying and practicing in one of the top universities in the world that must make it true. In Orac’s Insane Asylum evidence is irrelevant as long as the popular delusions of the mob are unanimous. Accusing me of toothology goes right with the rampant progressive wahoo racism allegation and all of the other poison in the well.

The nemesis of progressives is the mirror. This thread has 1100 comments because the reflection I presented is infuriating and irrestible to those who refuse to accept it. I was being praised when I applied cold logic to Ginger Taylor’s nonsense. The same logic here brought me jeers of hate.

I guess if people accuse me of being a quack and lying about studying and practicing in one of the top universities in the world that must make it true.

It’s not as though you were accused of missing a dental frat party.

Delysid:

I was being praised when I applied cold logic to Ginger Taylor’s nonsense. The same logic here brought me jeers of hate.

“The same logic”? Given how flawed your arguments here have been, you must have found yourself on the right side of the vaccination debate by sheer chance.
As for the “jeers of hate”, pot, kettle, black. Your arguments in support of libertarianism were torn apart and you have been abusive from comment #125. Here are some more.
#991

You aren’t even trying to comprehend a point of view different from your lunacy.

#1057

Pulling down your pants and operating orally on your own [redacted] might be a simple process

#1066: you abused lilady and I’m not repeating your vile rant here. You did the same to Narad in #1073. A few comments on, you linked to a website named “$elf$uck”.
We’re a scrappy lot here. Bring bad thinking, and it’ll get torn apart. Abuse us, and we’ll nail you.

#1108 Actually, this thread had so many posts because you have nonrational beliefs and people have taken a great deal of time to pick them apart and show that they are not rational.

I still think it’s unfortunate you happened to be the representative of libertarian thought on this thread.

Someone who treated others as individuals with different politics, belief systems and backgrounds rather than a single uniform mass with uniform beliefs may have been more successful.

Your strong emotional attachment to libertarianism hasn’t stood you in good stead either, as you seem to view attacks on it as attacks on you. In the future, it would help you if you were to distinguish between the two.

It would also help you to eliminate some emotionalism from your argumentation–insults such as “retardation” and calling everybody “soclaists” and the like don’t add anything rational to the discussion. If you have nothing rational to say, it’s actually less harmful to your arguments to say nothing than to clearly illustrate you have nothing to argue.

@Khani

Indeed. The most telling thing in this whole thread is that when reasonable questions were put to Delysid, he ignores the question and instead goes for an insult. He shows he does not have a rational, logical argument. None of the questions posed to him have been answered, even after hundreds of comments.

Sorry, Delysid gets no pass for his behavior, throughout this thread, from me.

He’s a proven liar and a filthy-mouthed troll. His political leanings have nothing to do with how he was treated here…although he will lie about that as well.

I personally believe that he has severe and untreated mental health issues, quite possibly exacerbated by substance abuse. I don’t care what his issues are, he’s a Troll who uses the anonymity of the internet to get his jollies.

In Orac’s Insane Asylum evidence is irrelevant as long as the popular delusions of the mob are unanimous.

Really, you couldn’t have gotten it more wrong if that were your intent. Evidence isn’t irrelevant–it’s critical, which is why we kept asking you for some evidence–any evidence, really–that your proposed unregulated free market would perform as well if not better than the current system where regualtory agencies exist, tax revenues underwrite public health and social welfare programs, etc. A example from history of a society where free market principles had performed successfully,for example.

At the least you should be able to describe how your unregulated free market society would address problems such as caring for the most vulnerable members of our society, ensuring safe working conditions, eliminating explotive child labor, guaranteeing the safety and purity of foods, drugs, etc. as well or better thanthe current system where government agencies (OSHA, FDA, etc.) which provide regulatory oversite now do.

You couldn’t even do that. In fact, in a brief moment of honest dialogue you admitted you had no solutions to offer, but believed that somehow, through the magic of the free market, surely other people would find answers.

So don’t come crying that anyone here considers evidence irrelevant, when you haven’t brought any evidence to the table in the first place.

I didn’t agree with The Very Reverend Battleaxe of Knowledge back at #98. Now I do.

You know, this whole thing with Delysid reminds me of recipient of the 2009 Richard Dawkins award, Bill Maher. Another person who was right (mostly by chance) with regard to some of his religion-related opinions, but spectacularly wrong when it came to medicine, among other topics.

Q: Would you like to explain your new political movement? You’re a hamburgertarian, is that right?

A: Yes, I’m starting a new political party, called the Hamburger Party. Our main precept is that we are all born with the inalienable right to hamburgers, obviously, and that government is the main reason we don’t all have as many hamburgers as we want. We believe that by abolishing government, we will ensure there are hamburgers for all. Isn’t that great?

Q: Well of course, everyone likes hamburgers, but there do seem to be quite a lot of hamburgers around, especially compared to some other countries and historical eras? Don’t things seem to be working fairly well with the current system?

A: Other countries are irrelevant, because Americans don’t live there; foreigners’ history and religions make them behave differently to normal people. The hamburgers we enjoy are despite government, not because of it. The less government we have, the more hamburgers we will have.

Q: How will the hamburgers be produced and distributed? Who will pay for them?

A: If the market is left alone, without interference, a state of balance will develop in in which everyone will have as many hamburgers as they want. It’s self -regulating.

Q: But how will this happen? Why wouldn’t one person hoard all the hamburgers and keep them all for himself? Or sell them to people for a profit?

A: That’s not my problem, other people will come up with solutions. That’s the beauty of the free market, it regulates itself so that everyone gets hamburgers.

Q: How could this possibly happen? What mechanisms are they for this to happen?

A: I can’t believe how stupid you are. You have been completely brainwashed into believing that government is the only way to get hamburgers. You are a foolish person with unusually prehensile autoerotic abilities.

Q: I’ll ignore the weird sexual insult, though it makes me begin to suspect you are mentally unstable. In other times and places where there has been no governemt control, a few rich people take all the hamburgers, and everyone else has to buy them. Hamburgers become a commodity and a luxury, and people with no money end up with no hamburgers at all! Why wouldn’t that happen here?

A: How is what has happened in the past the fault of hamburgertarianism? It has nothing to do with the society that we will have, everyone will have hamburgers in a hamburgertarian society, and that’s all there is to it.

Q: But you haven’t explained how this works!

A: What are you, some sort of brainwashed sheep that can’t even imagine having a world in which everyone has hamburgers? You must have a terrible prejudice against hamburgers; you hamburger hater. I expected you to show some intelligence, but you are just as stupid as all the other people who point at me and laugh. [Exits ranting]

I never could get libertarianism, but that may be partly because I have odd tastes in comics, mostly Japanese ones where the hero is someone with a rather limited skill set, usually very effective at beating up baddies, but not much use elsewhere. What’s more, maintaining said skill set requires extensive work that often precludes other means of employment, forcing them to live off of another person’s paycheck. They are usually tolerated, if often forced to do odd chores, simply because their skills are useful in situations where baddies do appear, an event that occurs with alarming frequency.

“I swear by hamburgers and my love of them that I will never make hamburgers for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to make hamburgers for mine.”

Ronald McDonald Shrugged

@Krebiozen – a well read and coherent hamburgertarian (which should be someone who practices and promotes the cuisine of Hamburg, but I digress) would state that it is not a stated goal of his movement that “everyone will have as many hamburgers as they want.”

Edith, you didn’t have to dredge up an Ayn Rand quote on our behalf. It just seems like it’s too much self-flagellation for our entertainment.

M.O’B.,

@Krebiozen – a well read and coherent hamburgertarian (which should be someone who practices and promotes the cuisine of Hamburg, but I digress) would state that it is not a stated goal of his movement that “everyone will have as many hamburgers as they want.”

But we are born with a right to hamburgers, that’s self-evident . This is an a priori fact that is recognized by all hamburgertarians. Are you some kind of greeno vegetarian?

In any case, the number of hamburgers a person wants is also self-regulating. In a hamburgertarian society everything regulates itself as long as you leave me alone and let me do whatever I want.

Krebiozen,

In any case, the number of hamburgers a person wants is also self-regulating. In a hamburgertarian society everything regulates itself as long as you leave me alone and let me do whatever I want.

And that, of course, is a fairly good summary of the free-market hambugertarian position. If you find that you cannot acquire hamburgers at a price you are willing or able to pay, you will look for other sources – perhaps you will go in on a calf with your neighbors to increase the hamburger supply, or you will find a hamburger substitute (or “helper”)..

The free-market hamburgertarian understands that there can be temporary disconnects between supply and demand, but believes that the incentives built in to the system will cause them to come into balance given time. Naturally, it may not be pretty – the hamburger hoarder may (after initial success driving up the hamburger market) find that (s)he is suddenly left with a warehouse full of hamburgers spoiling slowly as new sources of hamburger, people are more efficient with the hamburgers they do have, or people adopt hamburger substitutes. Likewise, people who cannot find hamburgers in their area may be forced to relocate to more hamburger-rich locations, leaving nonviable “patty towns”** behind.

But difference between supply and demand, in the mind of the free-market hamburgertarian, is likely to happen in ANY system.
** OK, that’s a stretch. If you’ve got a better analog for “ghost town”, please fill that in.

Todd W.,
Thanks for the prize, but I’m not sure I want this thread. It’s large and unwieldy and has a nasty smell about it in places. Could I have a pony or some airmiles instead please?

Edith Prickly,
Is ‘Ronald McDonald Shrugged’ the one where the vegetarian heroine falls in love with the mysterious man dressed as a clown who forces her to eat hamburgers?

How adorable that you chose hamburgers, one of the great successes of the market. Perhaps you are aware that in the US you can purchase a hamburger while sitting in your car in less than a minute and for one or two dollars?

But of course in your imaginary straw man fantasy, it goes from free society to THE RICH PEOPLE CONTROL EVERYTHING. Why is this always the assumption?

The exact hamburger example you used directly contradicts this extremist leap.

Here we are again. In the loop. “The government is the alpha and omega who protects the poor from the rich.” Yet you offer no proof of this. Despite all of the government redistribution of wealth there is still rampant poverty?

You expect instant perfection from the market to solve society’s problems, but why don’t you hold government to the same standard?

McDonald’s and other fast food is the best source of nutrition the homeless and poor have.

But of course those evil plutocrat capitalists just want to exploit them imma right? Government loves the poor so much.

I can summarize the defense of statism by everyone here quite concisely.

Step 1: Free-markets
Step 2: ?
Step 3: Plutocracy

The government, according to Orac’s Insane Asylum, is supposed to protect us from this imaginary plutocracy strawman, yet the wealthiest counties in the United States are directly because of the Federal government.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomvanriper/2013/04/25/americas-richest-counties/

Statism: the brilliant idea that we give a small group of people the right to kidnap, steal from and kill people, so that we can be protected from people who kidnap, harass, steal and kill people.

McDonald’s and other fast food is the best source of nutrition the homeless and poor have.

Well and truly spoken like an infantile megalomaniac with no experience of either.

McDonald’s and other fast food is the best source of nutrition the homeless and poor have.

I’ll pass that along to the ladies at the local Mennonite soup kitchen.

@Everyone

I want to clear up some confusion. I was not calling any of you an autofelliator except for Narad. He’s at it again.

@Shay

Oh the Mennonite soup kitchen? But I thought the government is god of the poor?

Delysid,

How adorable that you chose hamburgers, one of the great successes of the market.

I’m so glad you liked it. I have a well developed sense of irony, hard-won after many years of dealing with crappy life experiences. However, I was expecting you to entirely miss my point, and I’m not disapppointed.

Perhaps you are aware that in the US you can purchase a hamburger while sitting in your car in less than a minute and for one or two dollars?

I am aware of that. Perhaps you are aware we have them in the rest of the world too. I could hop into my car (if I had one) and pick up a Big Mac within about ten minutes, despite it being a little after 2 am here. As a matter of fact I have bought hamburgers of one sort or another on four continents. I think the lamb burger at the Wimpy in Delhi was my favorite, but I digress.

But of course in your imaginary straw man fantasy, it goes from free society to THE RICH PEOPLE CONTROL EVERYTHING. Why is this always the assumption?

History. Example after example after example of this happening.

The exact hamburger example you used directly contradicts this extremist leap.

How so? My reductio ad absurdum was an analogy between the inherent right to “liberty” (to own and protect property) and the inherent right to have hamburgers, and the ability of the free market to magically make either available, like the way pencils magically appear.

Here we are again. In the loop. “The government is the alpha and omega who protects the poor from the rich.”

I’m perfectly willing to look at alternative ways in which the poor can be protected from the rich. I want to live on a planet where no one is hungry and everyone has adequate clothing and shelter. If libertarianism can provide this, tell me how.

Yet you offer no proof of this.

There is abundant proof. In almost every historical situation where there have been no controls a powerful few have seized control and exploited everyone else. There are a few exceptions, like the odd benign dictatorship, but not many. If you can explain how libertarianism can prevent this from happening, please do.

Despite all of the government redistribution of wealth there is still rampant poverty?

Not in my country there isn’t, at least no one is starving, there are places where the homeless can find food and a bed for the night, and everyone with a low enough income is entitled to financial support from the government, and everyone gets adequate medical care. I’m not so sure about the US, but I do know it’s a great deal better than some places in the world I have visited.

You expect instant perfection from the market to solve society’s problems, but why don’t you hold government to the same standard?

No, I don’t expect perfection. I just expect some rational explanation of how libertarianism would work in practice to prevent employers from exploiting their workers, landlords from exploiting their tenants, drug companies from marketing dangerous drugs, irresponsible corporations from polluting rivers, cowboy builders from building houses that are unsafe, quack doctors from setting up their own regulatory boards, all the other things that people have brought up on this thread and many more.

I know that a democratically elected government is crappy in many ways, but after many years of exploring various political ideas I have come to the conclusion that it’s a better way of organizing things than any others I have come across. You haven’t done very well persuading me otherwise.

So, how would libertarianism work in practice to make things better than they are now? It’s a fairly simple question, but after more than 1,100 comments I still have no idea.

I want to clear up some confusion. I was not calling any of you an autofelliator except for Narad. He’s at it again.

Perhaps you could also clear up where I have “engaged” you in any fashion that would allow you to take refuge in half-witted tantrums about politics.

(Or with constantly crediting me with either having an enormous schlong or being some sort of yoga master as an attempted insult, whatever.)

@Krebiozen

I get the impression that Delysid has likely not read The Jungle. I wonder what solution his utopic vision of Libertarian wonderfulness would offer to deal with the situation raised in that book.

I wonder if the Troll’s mommy knows the filth that he spouts on the internet to women on the internet and to random strangers on blogs:

”I read Orac’s blog months before I ever made a comment because I read the moronic ramblings of the people here and didn’t bother. Go ahead and ban me. I’m getting bored anyway. You all can go f*ck yourselves (except Orac).”

I think I read somewhere that after “The Jungle” was published, the government sent out several inspectors to assure the public that conditions at the factories were not as bad as in the book. They were right: Conditions were much worse. Of course, this was when formaldehyde was used as a meat preserver and infant medicine could contain opium.

#1130 “by everyone here”

Oddly, no. Again, not everyone here is part of some big monolithic group with identical political beliefs.

People used different methods speaking with you, and not all of them even necessarily disagreed with libertarianism.

For example, I only showed that your viewpoint is nonrational.

That is your viewpoint specifically. I did not show anything about libertarianism in general or anything about the rationality of libertarianism. I didn’t even try to do this.

Had your viewpoint been shown to be rational, the next step would have been to question whether it is representative of libertarianism, or at least, a strain of libertarianism.

Only after that would I have engaged with actual libertarianism.

I never got to do that, because I don’t bother arguing when people have nonrational viewpoints that cannot be changed.

Delysid, I consider you an honorary toothiologist because you’d accept a system of informal apprenticeship training with no attempt at ensuring competence or standardizing practices. You may be an aspiring practitioner of quality dentistry (although your attitude suggests otherwise) but you’d consider inflicting chancy dentistry on the rest of us. Since even dentists need dentists, will you trust your oral health to someone trained by someone you’ve never heard of in some locale you’ve also never heard of? Of course, if you talk to people in realspace the way you talk to us here, you’re going to be in desperate need of major dental reconstruction sooner or later,

Yeah the fictional muckraking propagandist book the Jungle by the communist Upton Sinclair is such a trustworthy source. /s

http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Meat_packing

The large packing businessmen in Chicago supported government oversight as a means of stomping out smaller competitors. Classic case of regulatory capture and using the government as a weapon against competitors.

This is why I oppose state dental licensing. It is against my own interests but is still unfair and unethical for the State to intervene in the market in this way. I do everything I can to educate the society about evidence-based medicine but I support the right of quacks to “practice” medicine as long as the relationships are voluntary. May the best science win in the market place of ideas.

Delysid, what’s to prevent larger businesses from hiring people with big heavy sticks to drive out competitors?

Perhaps you are aware that in the US you can purchase a hamburger while sitting in your car in less than a minute and for one or two dollars?

No. That $2 thing you thinking about is not a hamburger.

A real hamburger is a thing of joy. Ground chuck,cooked to a dark brown, with a crunchy crust, between a toasted bun, simply dressed, is a symphony of favors and textures. Just lettuce and tomato, Heinz 57, french fried potatos, big kosher pickle, and a cold draft beer, is paradise.

That $2 bait and switch mirage is a textureless, flat flaxored lump of something evil, that will keep you alive, but it is not a hamburger. It is only fit children, dogs, and the uneducated.

Do not take hamburgers from strangers.

Shay and Luke: I’m rapidly coming to the opinion that the US needs to downsize, and a lot of the states in Ol’ Dixie are at the start of my list. Seriously, do we really need Texas? Or Missisippi?

Man, here I was thinking Delysid was simply a fervent True Believer – turns out he’ll intentionally inject another unrelated and obvious-sh!tstorm comment, then link to a Wiki knockoff that only cites Libertarian sources.

Check and mate, Delysid, this game’s yours. Well played.

@ORD

i’m not inflicting anything on anyone. That is the whole point of voluntaryism/libertarianism.

I practice evidence-based dentistry. One of my patients works for a chiropractor and believes in some woo, but she accepts my recommendations and treatments and is impressively compliant and rational. When she asked about it I explained to her how topical fluoride works, the story behind the mercury amalgam “controversy” and why they do not pose a health threat to her. The first time she sat in my chair her gingiva was so inflammed it bled on soft contact with the probe. Now that she has been under my perio care for a few months her periodontitis (and gingivitis) is almost gone. The positive results are apparent to her and I.

I’m not offended by you calling me an “honoray toothiologist” because it is so off-base I shouldn’t have even explained myself.

But I have to ask. How many believers in woo have you treated with evidence-based medicine?

@Kreb

A high percentage of the homeless in the US are OBESE. According to one study only 1.6% of the homeless population is underweight.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22644329

Lack of nutrition is not the problem. The market has been so successful at providing cheap nutrition that over 30% of the homeless population has TOO MUCH NUTRITION.

So what is cause ofthe shelter problem? For one, the US federal government has millions of acres of undeveloped land that could be used for housing. Property taxes force everyone to earn some type of income to remain on the land, sometimes extremely high amounts (like in Manhatten). Monetary inflation screws people like my 92 year old grandmother whose savings have

been wiped out by decades of currency destruction. There will always be a certain percentage of homeless in any society, as some people have psychiatric problems that prevent them from maintaining a shelter, but what is blocking those who are willing to work? It is not the market. It is givernment red tape and legislative compliance.

You asked me what is stopping people from building shoddy buildings, but what is stopping them now? The worst housin in the US are public housing projects. Do you think the government is providing (or requiring) quality work?

Does a driving license ensure skilled drivers? Or is it a mostly pointless exercise to extract money to the State?

There are shitty dentists and physicians with state licenses. Orac knows this quite well. There will inevitably be crap work being conducted in a free society without government control, but there is crap work work being done under government control. So what is the best way to handle this? My answer is market competition.

A number of comments back, someone mentioned xkcd. I decided to look at it. Here’s a very recent comic, called Ayn Random.
Hope I haven’t borked the link.

@Khani and Kreb

Evidence-based science does not apply to politics. “Political science” is not a science. There will always be more “evidence” in support of government programs compared to markets because government has unlimited resources through theft from society in which to justify itself.

Government is not burdened with the need to offer quality service, outdo competitors, or profit. Taxes come in regardless of the actions of government, and even then politicians greatly outspend tax revenue and put the country and the people in debt. One might be tempted to rebuttal with the democracy argument, but the re-election rate is approximately 80% for Congress. government has no real accountability. Private businesses are forced to offer constant quality or they are bested in the market.

@Delysid:

i’m not inflicting anything on anyone. That is the whole point of voluntaryism/libertarianism.

In #467 you quoted Milton Friedman as saying “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” Libertarianism has marvellous intentions that anyone could get behind, but history shows that it has ghastly results.

@Julian

So you are twisting Friedman’s quote to mean the exact opposite of his point about horrible government programs with encouraging names?

I’ll do the same thing. When Karl Marx said “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” he was really defending CAPITALISM by pointing out that the laws of supply and demand ensure that that goods needed by the needy will be produced by the producers and that the goods produced by the producers will be purchased by the needy and that government intervention is not only unnecessary, but harmful.

In Orac’s House of the Indigent Insane words have no meaning, context is non-existent, and speculation is fact.

“Twisting”? What an odd thing to say. Friedman was pointing out that good intentions do not automatically mean good outcomes. How was I twisting his words?

Delysid,

Lack of nutrition is not the problem. The market has been so successful at providing cheap nutrition that over 30% of the homeless population has TOO MUCH NUTRITION.

I never suggested it wasn’t. I pointed out that in countries in the developed world with functioning governments no one is starving. I said I don’t know about the US because I don’t know about the US – I haven’t visited for several years. I hear horror stories about people having their welfare cut off after years of unemployment, poverty and tent cities but I don’t know how reliable they are.

The rest of your comment suggests to me that you have some problems with your government in the US. I think you would benefit from a more socialist government, like some of those in Europe. In France, for example, the government is afraid of the people, whereas in the US, it seems to me, many of you are afraid of the government.

Anyway, I really don’t see how less regulation would help in any of those areas.

Evidence-based science does not apply to politics. “Political science” is not a science.

Why not? Because you say so? Argument by assertion again? Why can’t we use the scientific method to find out which method of government works best? Why can’t we use evidence from history to inform our decisions about the present?

No wonder you reject evidence; you want to base everything on blind faith and ideology, and to ignore everything we have learned about human behavior and politics over the past two thousand years. You are incapable of seeing how utterly blinkered you are, and yet you project this onto everyone else. I find this very strange indeed.

@Delysid

My answer is market competition.

Yeah, we get that, but you still haven’t explained how, nor provided evidence that that would work better than the current situation (marketplace + varying degrees of government regulation).

Nor have you answered any of the other questions that have been posed to you.

#1155 No one said anything about political science. No politics, no science and no political science were mentioned.

If no logic and no evidence would change your mind about a belief, it’s not a rational belief.

I think Delysid considers this less a matter of science and more a question of right and wrong. Notice how often he brings up ethics. However, his understanding of right and wrong is incredibly shallow. For example, he opposed regulatory agencies because of the possibility of corruption. It never occurs to him that if large businesses are going to try and corrupt the government to force out small companies, then they’ll simply take other options without regulation: Selling cheap, shoddy goods fraudulently marketed as high quality is a classic one, as is price-fixing. Given he also intends to remove police forces, they could simply hire armed men to drive small businesses out of town. In other words, his society built on the free market cannot even guarantee a free market will exist.

Here’s a little bit of Delysid facepalm that stuck in my memory, but I didn’t give it any thought at the time:
“Hide behind your anonymity and use the mob mentality to make yourselves feel better about your own hypocrisies and failures.”
If anyone here is hiding behind the anonymity of the ‘Net, it is you, Delysid. You fail to respond to legitimate criticism and when someone pokes a hole in your pet beliefs, you respond with nasty, crude remarks. You were the first one to call names here, then you complain when you get your own tossed back in your face. You count on your anonymity when you make comments that would get you put down, put out, or punched out if you made them face to face, and you make them to anyone who disagrees with your ideology. You behave as if any criticism is a threat, rather than an occasion for dialogue – as if your beliefs were more like a religion.
I have been positing problems with your apprenticeship concept, as have others, but ever since you started to draw fire for it, you have not offered any rebuttals. That has been your pattern with almost everything,

@Gray Falcon

I don’t understand how you are still failing to grasp anything regarding libertarianism. The only thing in your last comment that was correct is that I care about right and wrong.

I don’t oppose government because it mightbe corrupt. Government could be occupied by the smartest and most ethical human beings alive (lolololololololol) and it would still be wrong. Please try to understand the fallaciuosness of your argument. YOU support government because thebmarket MIGHT be corrupt. Everything you explained about what I supposedly think was your projections of your own feelings about what might happen in a free dociety.

The government is undeniably corrupt. Even the most hardcore socialists recognize corruption (but they feel the failure of government is due to the wrong people beong in power rather than the system itself). You seem to be non-demoninational pro government. Support of arbitrary power as long as it claims to be well intentioned.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” CS Lewis

Delysid, pay attention. One, having a government is not the same as tyranny. If this were a tyranny, you would have been killed a long time ago as a troublemaker, and possibly a few family members for good measure. We are a constitutional democracy, we have rules against that kind of thing. Two, my philosophy of right and wrong is best expressed by great author Eiichiro Oda:

You made my mate cry. Now I’m going to kick your ass.

– Monkey D. Luffy
I judge right and wrong by whether an action causes real harm to others, not because it is wrong in principle. Constitutional democracy isn’t perfect, but so far, it’s worked better than everything else we’ve tried, so I’m sticking with it.

Old Rockin Dave supports the government despite incorrectly naming the type of government he supports. LOL.

@old Rockin Dave

You are not informed enough about Republicanism in the US to vote responsibly. If you are in fact old this is shameful.

Educate yourself before you spew any more ignorance, or worse, vote. I shudder thinking that you vote. People in this blog are worried about quacks practicing medicine when it is a far bigger problem for our society that the people in this blog vote. The founding fathers tried to limit voting to avoid the exact socialist democracy shitshow the government has turned into.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republicanism_in_the_United_States

Delysid,

Are you trying your best to be thick or does it come to you naturally?

Inquiring mind want to know.

The government has not killed me. How benevolent of them. I guess I should just love the government and support whatever they do. As long as they don’t kill me I should accept whatever they do imma right Old Rockin genius?

I’m not Dave. And I’m not saying you should accept whatever they do, I’m just saying you shouldn’t use emotionally charged words where they don’t apply. Now, here’s an emotionally charged word that does apply: Delysid, you are a liar. We never said you should support everything the government does, we only said that anarchy is a terrible solution. That’s it. Do not put words in our mouths. Do that in person, and that’s a good way to get people to put fists in your mouth.

Calling me a liar again eh? I said in several other comments I would support a Nightwatchman State for military and a court system with police. You lied by accusing me of otherwise.

Is there anything the government does that you do not support?

The war on drugs, for one thing. The use of unmanned drones.
And I quote you from earlier in the thread:

A fire department, court system, and sheriff would be the last functions of a government I would abolish, yet that seems to be the first thing statists cry about whenever questions the authority of the State

That implies that yes, you would abolish such things. And even with a police department, that doesn’t prevent one business from driving out all the others through price fixing and deceptive marketing, and forcing all its workers to convert to their religion.

War on Drugs is my number 1 issue so I’m glad we agree on that.

Hypothecally yes I would consider abolishing all government, but that is abstract and not in the realm of possibility nor concern. I’m most concerned with the abolition of post 1900 agencies. The FDA, which has been fiercely defended here, is a major force in the drug war. I strongly support responsible drug use (the dose makes the poison) but it is not the federal governments role to make these decisions about chemicals, through the FDA DEA or whatever other 3-letter acronym.

Price fixing is government action! In a free system prices cannot be fixed without force. Monopolies in the market are always are always temporary. Using government, the ultimate monopoly, to stop other monopolis is foolish to me. As long as there is free competition there won’t be price fixing. It is the law of supply and demand.

And of course, Delysid hasn’t even bothered to look up the phrase “price fixing”. The Wikipedia definition:
Price fixing is an agreement between participants on the same side in a market to buy or sell a product, service, or commodity only at a fixed price, or maintain the market conditions such that the price is maintained at a given level by controlling supply and demand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_fixing

No mention of force or government at all. Seriously, how can anyone say “In a free system prices cannot be fixed without force. ” and be able to feed and dress themselves? Can’t he even think about all the propaganda he gets fed for even a minute!

Good. Now tell me, what can the free market do about price fixing? Oh, and don’t use sources like the Cato Institute, their policies were what started the recession in the first place.

And here I thought the War on Drugs involved the DEA, CIA, etc., but not FDA.

Delysid, could you please describe the state of medicine before FDA was established? What, specifically, do you see as being wrong about FDA regulation of drugs, medical devices and biologics?

Delysid says:
“Old Rockin Dave supports the government despite incorrectly naming the type of government he supports. LOL.”
I have never named the type of government I support anywhere in this thread. You are LOL’ing out your ass.
He also says about me:
“You are not informed enough about Republicanism in the US to vote responsibly. If you are in fact old this is shameful.” Actually, I have not mentioned the Republicans anywhere in this thread. You need to cut back on your nitrous oxide intake.
Do come back and comment here again when your frontal lobes are fully grown in.

Price Fixing is taken care of by game theory (essentially a variant on The Prisoners’ Dilemna). While price fixing may be done successfully for a while, something will come along to disrupt the agreement. Examples would include:
– a new supplier enters the market
– people stop buying the commodity
– one party to the agreement decides that it’s in their interest to no longer abide by it.

Old Rockin’ Dave: If this were anyone else, I’d simply mention that he did recognize his mistake earlier in the thread. However, given that he was attacking me on a distinction only made by those who want to look smarter than they are, his own playing fast and loose with words, his mistaking “price fixing” for “fixed pricing” and not bothering to address anything, and his general crudeness, I’ll just say he deserved that.

Mephistopheles O’Brien: While price fixing might go away on its own, so do house fires. I’d much rather deal with it before the damage spreads.

@ORD

I apologized for the confusion. Gray Falcon’s comment was very similar to others you have made. I was in the lab and only half paying attention to this thread.

@Gray Falcon

The difference between a republic and democracy is not subtle.

I encourage you to please watch this JBS video. It has some mild Christian undertones in the fist few minutes, but overall it is an outstanding explanation of the American Republic.

BTW I don’t agree with every aspect of this video, particularly JBS’s explanation of anarchy, but overall it still explains some important concepts.

Sorry, it’s still from a source that thinks the USSR still exists, I can’t accept it. Try again.

“Government could be occupied by the smartest and most ethical human beings alive (lolololololololol) and it would still be wrong. ”

Why?
Assume a government, comprised only of the elected representatives representing the smartest and most ethical members of the society they represent, working to enusre the well-being of all members of that society.

By what rational argument would that be a bad thing?

@Gray Falcon

Watch the video. It’s a logical fallacy to blindly reject information based on who says it. Overview of America is a great overview of the concept of republicanism.

@JBC

You are confused about what is “rational.” Please tell me, how government work to ensure the “well-being of all members.”

How can that possibly be true? What does “well-being” mean? Who is defining this? Is well-being the same for every single person? You are the one being irrational.

Perhaps you are an adherent of the “greater good.” Again, what does this mean? My idea of of the greater good is inevitably different from yours, or from Orac’s. My idea of the greater good is often different from the majority. Does this make me wrong? This is the Appealing to Popularity logical fallacy.

Let’s say Delysid is the government of Orac’s Insane Asylum, and I notice that every member has a serious medical problems in which they need organ transplants. Let’s say ORD needs a liver transplant, Gray Falcon needs a heart transplant, and JBC needs a pancreas transplant. Let’s say there is outrage that the market is not providing these organs needed to save these 3 lives.

Since I am Delysid, benevolent dictator, I want to save the lives of ORD, Gray Falcon, and JGC. I realize that with some forced redistribution, I can sacrifice one other member in order to save three. So I drag Orac, who has had a good long life according me, and we kill him and harvest his organs, saving 3 lives in the process.

Sacrificing the rights of 1 person is ethical as long as it benefits the well-being of 3 others, right? Why does Orac have a right to his own body? The social contract argues that I have authority over him.

Maybe we could even hold a vote. Orac votes against forced organ harvesting, and ORD, JBC, Gray Falcon and myself vote in favor. That is 4 to 1 in favor of a small sacrifice for the greater good. That is democracy in action.

Is this ethical?

Perhaps my organ harvesting of essential organs example is too extreme (although this happens with prisoners in China), but how are organs any different from other property?

Orac is a rich doctor. Is it ethical for Delysid, the benevolent dictator voted in democratically, to forcefully confiscate other property, say a car or his bank savings, in order to give it to ORD, Gray Falcon, and JBC in for their well-being to help the greater good? What about non-essential organs like plasma, or 1 lung? Is that ethical? Orac has to intake energy in order to produce new plasma (which takes labor) in the same way that he has to labor to buy a new car. What is the difference? Why in America is it considered ethical to take his money by force for redistribution but not his tissue?

Delysid the democratically elected benevolent dictator is clearly the most intelligent and ethical person in Orac’s Insane Asylum, so that means that the only rational argument is to support my arbitrary authority, right?

BTW keep in mind that, by definition, the people whose behavior your proposed government composed of the smartest and most ethical human beings alive must include the most ignorant and least ethical people alive.

Delysid: It’s not a logical fallacy to reject information from known unreliable sources, especially if that source is known for deliberate deceit.

“My idea of the greater good is often different from the majority. Does this make me wrong?”

Nope, just irrelevant.

Democracy can be _such_ a pain.

And of course, Delysid’s discussion fails to take into account constitutional protections. The Bill of Rights, for example, was added to the US Constitution to allay the fears of some states that majority opinions might try to outlaw the minorities. Given that Rhode Island was founded by a group who separated from the Puritans after deciding they were too extreme, this was a valid concern.

@Delysid

Do you really want to start playing the logical fallacy game? ‘Cause if you do, you might want to clean up all those straw men you built.

On a more serious note, your “benevolent dictator” scenario can be just as easily applied to any governmental system, as well as any anarchical system. Just replace the benevolent dictator with, say, a company. Free market, right? What’s to stop the company from doing exactly what you criticize?

Here’s a “strict liability” issue to ponder, namely that of accumulated small effects. Let’s say that it’s determined that auto exhaust containing lead negatively affects the brain development of children exposed to it (as it did). Now, who has the ‘strict liability”? The millions of motorists who have little other choice (as they once did not)? The gas stations that could have made an effort to offer unleaded gas (which was in short supply and at the time didn’t perform as well)? The refineries and distributors (who, after all, were giving the public what it seemed to want)? None of them have a very big chunk of the liability, yet the harm has been done, and to many people.
To me, this is a clearcut case for a government to step in. The cause of the harm is diffuse, the problem is widespread, and the free market was both incapable and unwilling to stop or remediate it, yet something had to be done. It was a problem caused by most of the population and it affected directly or indirectly most of the population. That means that to work a solution must give an irresistible incentive to get the product off the market. That incentive could only be the force of law. When Amoco first introduced unleaded gas in all grades, they didn’t do very well. Only those wet, soft-headed, tree-hugging environmentalist types (Danger: Sarcasm in use here. Avoid flames.) were going out of their way to buy it. Motorists didn’t want to pay more and/or risk a hit in performance. Refiners didn’t want to change their formulas and equipment. Gas stations didn’t want to offer two different types of gas, one of which could damage engines made to run best on the other. What could make them change but laws?

@Old Rockin’ Dave: So in other words, it was really one big coordination issue. The net results would be an improvement for everyone involved, but if only one party acted, they would be at a disadvantage. A reverse prisoner’s dilemma, if you will. In this case, the US government was the coordinator.

It seems those who support progressive democracy think that people are too stupid at doing everything except choosing which people are intelligent enough to make decisions for them.

@Gray Falcon

Libertarians are NOT against coordination! Give me a break!

“The argument for liberty is not an argument against organization, which is one of the most powerful tools human reason can employ, but an argument against all exclusive, privileged, monopolistic organization, against the use of coercion to prevent others from doing better.”
― Friedrich A. von Hayek

@Delysid

Grey Falcon was not saying that Libertarians are against coordination. He’s saying that ORD’s scenario was a situation which required coordination, but the coordination of which did not come from the free market/market forces. In other words, that was an opportunity for a Libertarian approach to show it could work, but it failed. It’s a situation where the individual actors were too focused on their own personal benefits, that none were willing to take the risk to improve the situation for everyone. As Grey falcon pointed out, it’s another Prisoner’s Dilemma.

So, are you ever going to address the points that are actually being made and the questions that are actually being asked of you, rather than your straw man interpretations of them?

@ORD

There is more than one side of the story. I see you have chosen the side of the heroic government saving us because the greedy capitalists wouldn’t act like tree-hugging hippies, but the government was the most powerful defender of TEL for decades. It seems to me that government propaganda prolonged the inevitable decline of TEL. It’s the same situation with smoking. Progressives love to point out the dangers of smoking and how Big Tobacco lied, but the Surgeon General of the US defended it for decades. THE GOVERNMENT LIED.

Also, there are environmental downsides to catalytic convertors (the main reason for removing tetraethyllead from gasoline). Again, there is more than one side to the situation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalytic_converter#Negative_aspects

Delysid, don’t make claims without providing evidence from reliable sources. You have given us absolutely no reason to trust you or your sanity. The only claim you make in #1201 that has a source only shows that a catalytic converter can cause problems, but not nearly as severe as the ones they are meant to prevent.

You are confused about what is “rational.” Please tell me, how government work to ensure the “well-being of all members.”

Numerous ways: by regulating commerce, by regulating the food and drug industries, by setting standards and licensing technical occupations, by regulating the creation, use and disposal of hazardous wastes, by levying taxes to underwrite the costs of regulatory bodies as well as providing funds to maintain the military, state and federal police agencies, emergencey responders (fire and medical), child protection agencies, OSHA, to underwrite SNAP programs, etc. Society as a whole benefits from all of the above.

My idea of of the greater good is inevitably different from yours, or from Orac’s.

From your posts it seems less that you have a different idea of the greater good than you don’t believe your personal behavior should be constrained in the interests of serving the greater good, or you should be required to contribute fnancially to provide for the greater good.

So I drag Orac, who has had a good long life according me, and we kill him and harvest his organs, saving 3 lives in the process.

Nice strawman–build it all yourself? Surely you’re not going to suggest that this is valid analogy which describes the operation of every government system either extant or possible. China, as you note, is an outlier, and is roundly condemned for acting unethically.

But let’s consider your analogy as it would apply to your preferred unregulated free market society. In our current system, there are multiple state and federal regulations which would oppose this practice. In your unregulated, government-free, police-free, free market soceity what exactly would oppose individuals forming companies which hired thugs to abduct, physicians (who were not subject to constraint by licensing boards) to sacrifice individuals and harvesting their organs, and factors to sell those organs for whatever price they could command in a market without regulation or prohibition?

Is it ethical for Delysid, the benevolent dictator voted in democratically, to forcefully confiscate other property, say a car or his bank savings, in order to give it to ORD, Gray Falcon, and JBC in for their well-being to help the greater good?

In your imaginary would of benevolent dicatorship there may be no restraint on what president for life Delysid could do, but in the real world that isn’t the case. In some circumstances it might be ethical to compel the forfiture of a car or garnishment of wages–for example to return the car to a lienholder in the event of default on an auto loan, or garnishing wages if one owes mandated child support.

Why in America is it considered ethical to take his money by force for redistribution but not his tissue.

You keep referring to ‘taking money by force’—I’m not aware that the government is in the practice of mugging citizens on the street and taking their money. If by ‘take money by force” you are referring to the collection of tax revenues, in accordance with law, to underwrite state and federal policies established by the authorities they freely elected, then the answer is yes. After all, they accrue real material benefit from those policies.

I’ll also note that it’s inappropriate to describe taxation as taking money by force by your own expressed libertarian standard: taxpayers aren’t being forced but are in voluntarily agreement to be subject to taxation. After all, as you’ve stated previously if someone doesn’t want to pay taxes he’s free to go elsewhere where he won’t be taxed, just as in your example an employee working for less than minimum wage in unsafe conditions is free to ‘go elsewhere’ to find employment.

Same reason one can own a car but not a slave: you’re trying to suggest an equivalence btween two fundamentally different entities. You are rather than possess your body: you possess rather than are your money. Money is fungible, individuals and their tissues are not.

@JGC – as you pointed out, Delsyid is free to immigrate, if he hates the government so much to any of those other “libertarian” paradises that exist all over the globe, showing us how our “love” of the government is backwards & inept, right?

I mean, I’m sure, if this theory is so fantastically self-evident, then there must be plenty of places around the world, both current and past, where we can point to where this has been tried and proven to be an outstanding success, right?

I’m sure that Delsyid will have no trouble providing those examples to us for review, correct?

Well, we’re waiting…….

@Gray Falcon

Do you mean “reliable” sources like hysterical anti-corporation left-wing propaganda? Literature about the history of TEL is overwhelming pro-government centered. This is a major problem of revisionist history. Finding criticism of the government’s role in negative public health affairs is practically impossible.

Why do you think the government allowed the major oil corporations to use TEL as the anti-knocking agent until the 1960’s despite knowing the health hazards in the 1920’s?

Here is a conspiracy theory for you. The American military war machines are powered by oil and benefited greatly by TEL as an anti-knocking agent.

Of course if you read left-wing historical interpretations it is always the same story- Big Bad Evil Corporations profiting off of poison until the hero Federal government saved us all.

I don’t have a source I will link to. I gathered the information from reading a few left-wing propaganda pieces and filtering out the blatant confirmation bias.

Are the Big Oil corporations innocent? Of course not. But the government is every bit as guilty. Banning TEL was just them covering their own asses decades later when alternative anti-knocking agents could be used to power the war machine.

Delysid may try to claim that he does support having a public police force, but his post on #776 proves he isn’t very consistent about his beliefs:
When should you shoot a cop? “That question, even without an answer, makes most law-abiding tax payers go into major conniptions.”

Sorry, that last part was a quote from him. Regardless, he seems to change his position whenever he feels like it, and tries to convince us, despite the fact that we can read the rest of the thread, that he always held that belief.

Finally, there’s Delysid’s rant at #1205. Several paragraphs of accusations, not one jot or tittle of evidence. Does he seriously think we believe him, especially since he can’t see the difference between fighting a city-wide fire and wiping oneself? I guess it can’t be helped that reality has a left-wing bias.

How can that possibly be true? What does “well-being” mean? Who is defining this? Is well-being the same for every single person? You are the one being irrational.

A hilariously ironic statement in the face of this intoning of occultist wisdom:

Government is not burdened with the need to offer quality service, outdo competitors, or profit…. Private businesses are forced to offer constant quality or they are bested in the market.

How can that possibly be true? What do “quality” and “bested” mean? Who is defining this?

Emergent, universal absolutes are just fine in D.’s cosmology so long as he recognizes them as part of the cast of his preferred, spooky Ring Cycle, definitions most certainly not required (cf. “value”).

(Leaving aside, of course, the fact that the core platitude is patently false, as a cursory examination of, say, the long-standing and deplorable retail, dining, and entertainment landscape in the very neighborhood of the Chicago School, the patrons of which have finally decided to go comically whole-hog with in the central planning department. Again.)

@JGC – all Delsyid has done is pointed out the areas in which government has a “less than stellar” track record” as proof that his “ideal” would be better…….we’ve heard that story before – where quacks will point to failures in medicine as a means of “proving” that their way is better….again, without offering even a shred of proof that it would be the case.

I don’t have a source I will link to. I gathered the information from reading a few left-wing propaganda pieces and filtering out the blatant confirmation bias.

Translation: I ignored everything that I didn’t like and came to my own made up conclusions that agreed with my a priori opinions.

Here’s a fun fact about government and cigarettes- military servicemen (including conscripts) were given millions of them as part of their rations from WWI until the Vietnam War.

http://archive.lewrockwell.com/kirkwood/kirkwood39.html

The Federal government didn’t publish the Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the United States until 1964, nearly 50 years after causal links between lung cancer and smoking starting becoming apparent. Nearly half of the US population thought that smoking caused cancer by the 1950’s.

Now of course left-wing propaganda portrays government as the savior. Time magazine and other left-wing muckraking rags remind us of the Camel and Marlboro turn of the century tobacco advertisements, but fail to acknowledge the government’s role in tobacco use proliferation.

Left-wing revisionist history is maniacal and relentless. It whitewashes anything that opposes left-wing agendas. Google searches are so one-sided for left-wing propaganda it is comical.

No wonder so many people are enamored by the State.

Delysid,

Progressives love to point out the dangers of smoking and how Big Tobacco lied, but the Surgeon General of the US defended it for decades. THE GOVERNMENT LIED.

The British Doctor’s Study strongly suggested a link between tobacco smoking and lung cancer in 1956. In 1964 the US Surgeon General reported (slow-loading PDF) that tobacco causes lung cancer and is a main contributor to bronchitis stating, “Cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial action” When were the decades that the Surgeon General defended it, knowing it was dangerous?

catalytic convertors (the main reason for removing tetraethyllead from gasoline).

Seriously? You really believe that this was why leaded gas was phased out, nothing to do with lead toxicity? Where do you get all this laughable misinformation from?

Yeah, I know this seems like a “guilt by association” fallacy, but many of Delysid’s sources have close ties to white supremacist organizations, and Delysid himself has been in favor of allowing discriminatory hiring practices. One wonders whose liberty these “libertarians” are really fighting for.

“Isn’t Lew Rockwell a creationist?”

…and a homophobic HIV denialist, a racist and a host of other “qualities” that the “soon-to-be-a-doctor/dental student/anarchist” reveres.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lew_Rockwell

What about D’s 92-year-old grandmother, who has been the beneficiary of Medicare for at least 27 years. Does his aging grandma know how he posts filth at women on the internet?

@lilady & Gray Falcon

STOP POISONING THE WELL.

Just because a person is wrong about X does not make him wrong about Y. Kary Mullis believes in aliens visiting Earth and astrology, does this make him wrong about PCR?

God dammit stop with these terrible arguments. Orac pisses me off about some of his political views but I defend him without restraint when it comes to quackery. It’s the same thing with Ron Paul. Or literally anyone who is right about something. Occasionally I even agree with Mike Adams (not that often).

Delysid,

The Federal government didn’t publish the Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the United States until 1964, nearly 50 years after causal links between lung cancer and smoking starting becoming apparent.

The history of tobacco is an interest of mine and has been for quite some time. I know about the Nazi research, of course, and how it was ignored, for obvious reasons. Where were the causal links between lung cancer and smoking “becoming apparent” before this? Apparent to whom? There’s nothing on PubMed earlier than 1946, and early reports were case studies and speculation, not solid evidence.

Nearly half of the US population thought that smoking caused cancer by the 1950′s.

Really? Evidence? Why would they have believed this? In 1950 in the US, Wynder and Graham published a study titled ‘Tobacco smoking as a possible etiologic factor in bronchiogenic carcinoma; a study of 684 proved cases’, which hardly suggests that the science was settled. A study in the BMJ the same year was similarly tentative in its conclusions, and pointed out that the apparent increase in lung cancer might not be a real increase, but could be due instead to improved diagnosis. These were all retrospective studies, strongly suggestive of a link, but with all the weaknesses this implies. It wasn’t until the prospective 1956 British Doctor’s Study was published that the evidence began to look more than suggestive.

With the benefit of hindsight it’s easy to criticize various governments for dragging their feet about tobacco. I tend to think that the influence of Big Tobacco in this has been somewhat overblown. I can understand governments not wanting to do anything to reduce a significant source of tax revenues unless they are very sure of what they are doing. I can also understand companies trying to protect their profits, and interpreting any research in the best possible light.

It’s hard to see how the tobacco story would have panned out any better in a libertarian society in which, if I understand you correctly, even heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine would be freely available.

Three gems from other articles by R. Cort Kirkwood, the source of Delysid’s fun ‘facts.’ This is purely for amusement, not well-poisoning…Kreb has already demonstrated how this loony’s smoking history claims are demonstrably false.

On human-chimp divergence:

The latest claim that chimpanzees are closer to humans than other primates will undoubtedly warm the hearts of evolutionists everywhere. But they shouldn’t start swinging from the trees for joy just yet. It doesn’t mean much, for other animals also share the same genes as Homo Sapiens. In short, it isn’t as if we’ve learned anything new.

On women in the military:

As a practical matter, 99 percent of women are unsuited for combat, and that includes flying combat aircraft and serving on combatant ships. That women do these things doesn’t mean they should; it just means the military has been feminized and civilianized, as any military man will admit after a few shots of Jack Daniels at the Officers’ Club, and of course, after his commanding officer leaves.

And my favorite, on the separation of church and state:

The [Kitzmiller v. Dover] decision was based on the palpably absurd and well-worn notion that teaching something, anything, about religion in a public school is “unconstitutional” and violates the “wall of separation between Church and State.” Of course, it isn’t the Constitution or the First Amendment that prohibits teaching religion in schools. The real prohibitive agent in these cases is the steamer trunk of erroneous case law cited by the judge and hoked up by anti-Christian, leftist courts that would have no power if the locals refused to abide them.

@Everyone

Look, I’m in the middle of two worlds, both of which there are aspects in which I agree and disagree vehemently. These two worlds are the liberty movement and the science world. This is a result of politicized science. I despise when libertarians reject the principles science and I despise when scientists reject the principles of libertarianism.

Science should be apolitical and politics should be ascientific.

I despise when libertarians reject the principles science

You mean like when they are unable to produce any coherent mechanisms through which a libertarian society would accomplish anything, let alone evidence that such mechanisms would actually work?

Delysid, you have no qualms accusing any source we use of bias, without any evidence I might add. Why shouldn’t we point out the biases of your sources? The reason why I bring them up is because there is another fallacy you seem to ignore: Argument from false authority. If it can be established that your sources are willing to lie about anything to make a point, then it is not fallacious to reject their claims.

I called the Troll out weeks ago for the phony “soon-to-be-a-doctor”/dental student/ignorant anarchist he is.

He lied about the “dangers” of amalgam fillings/versus the real research about the dangers of composite fillings and could not even read the simple pie charts I provided to him about Federal Income Tax and Ohio State Income Tax.

I’m tired of paying for the Troll’s financial aid education loans and his aging grandmother’s Social Security and Medicare, because she, according to the Troll, is destitute because of inflation.

Perhaps the Troll doesn’t understand that this is a science blog and not an adult porn site. Does he get off by posting links to his favorite filthy porn sites and by calling random strangers “old c*nts” and tell us all to go “f*ck ourselves”?

@AdamG

“Mechanism” does not apply politics. You are proving my point by trying to politicize science. Acetylsalicylic acid irreversibly inhibits the enyzyme cyclooxygenase. That is a mechanism. (And yes this is the example on Wikipedia, but I knew this off of the top of my head and typed this before I did a Google search just to make sure).

You are still projecting the premise of central planning onto what you expect from a free society. I don’t want one 1 plan by government bureaucrats, I advocate the opportunity for plans by the thousands, or millions, or whatever other number. I advocate for plans by the many, not by the few.

I’ve explained this in as many different ways as I’ve been able. I’ll keep trying if you still aren’t getting it.

Delysid, there’s a good possibility one of those plans will involve the elimination of minorities than someone dislikes.

“Mechanism” does not apply politics.

Nope, try again.

mech·a·nism noun ˈme-kə-ˌni-zəm
— a piece of machinery
— a mechanical part or group of parts having a particular function
— a process or system that is used to produce a particular result
— a way of acting, thinking, or behaving that helps or protects a person in a specified way

I don’t want one 1 plan by government bureaucrats, I advocate the opportunity for plans by the thousands, or millions, or whatever other number. I advocate for plans by the many, not by the few.
I’ve explained this in as many different ways as I’ve been able. I’ll keep trying if you still aren’t getting it.

No. I get exactly what you’re saying. What you’ve completely failed to do is convince anyone here how these ‘plans by the many’ address larger societal issues like those laid out by JGC in #797.

Follow-up to last post: The Weimar Republic wasn’t exactly a strong government. Also, Hitler never did obtain power by democratic election, he used a series of backroom deals.

@Kreb

Here is one source about the 44% percent believing smoking caused cancer in 1958. It was a Gallup poll. The source I linked to is extremely biased towards government and said “A Gallup Survey conducted in 1958 found that only 44 percent of Americans believed smoking caused cancer, while 78 percent believed so by 1968” but I interpreted this differently.

To me it is quite significant that nearly half of the population was already aware of the relationship between smoking and lung cancer years BEFORE these so called great achievements in public health via government.

http://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/ps/retrieve/Narrative/NN/p-nid/60

@AdamG

What are the mechanisms of government programs exactly?

How does government work? How are they accomplishing the goals? They SAY there is improvement, but what is the evidence? How much money taken from government is actually to the destination and working once it gets there?

“It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.” Thomas Sowell

**Typo

I meant to say “how much money taken by government actually makes it to the “intended” destination and works as intended once it gets there?

Delysid,

Here is one source about the 44% percent believing smoking caused cancer in 1958. It was a Gallup poll.

That was just 2 years after the publication of the British Doctors Study which convinced a lot of people of the risks. Only 6 years later the Surgeon General of the US stated that “Cigarette smoking is a health hazard of sufficient importance in the United States to warrant appropriate remedial action”. I don’t see that as evidence that, “the Surgeon General of the US defended it for decades. THE GOVERNMENT LIED”.

How would a libertarian society have dealt with a problem like that exactly?

Delysid@1233: Of course, it’s not like employment, crime rates, or fire damages can be measured numerically. Seriously, have you considered the possibility of thinking before posting?

As someone living in the UK that Thomas Sowell quote made me laugh. I would rephrase it:

“It is amazing that people who think that paying for doctors, hospitals, medication and a non-profit government bureaucracy to administer it would somehow cost more than paying for the same doctors, hospitals and medication, but also paying for hundreds of different bureaucracies to administer it, and paying the profits demanded by the shareholders of the various private companies and insurance companies providing these services.”

Has Sowell not heard of economies of scale? Isn’t it likely that one organization can buy millions of doses of a drug, as just one example, more cheaply per dose than a private company can buy hundreds of doses? Isn’t this one reason that US health care is the most expensive in the world but one of the least efficient?

It is rather amusing how Delysid keeps asking for evidence that a government can accomplish something, ignores the evidence provided, and then absolutely refuses to provide anything resembling evidence to support his own notions that some sort of Libertarian utopia could be at least as effective as a government.

That was just 2 years after the publication of the British Doctors Study which convinced a lot of people of the risks.

Depends where you mean (PDF). Correlation of political leanings with propensity for THE GOVERNMENT to have LIED is left as an exercise for the reader.

Narad,
It’s fascinating that so many people in New Delhi believed that smoking caused cancer back in 1958, which suggests that smoking wasn’t common. When I was there a few decades later, it seemed that most men smoked*, and I remember a couple of Indians telling me that smoking was good for the health, except in “excess”. That still seems to be the case – Wikipedia tells me that, “According to a 2002 WHO estimate, 30% of adult males in India smoke”. I blame Bollywood.

* That was at a time when I saw a fruit beer advertised with “no natural ingredients” as its tag line, so I wonder about the influence of western companies seeking a market.

It’s a scientific fact that Cuba has a better healthcare system than the US. LOL. Opinion surveys and government collected and reported data is so scientific. LOL. The WHO, which openly promotes socialized medicine, is the gold standard of trustworthiness when reporting about US healthcare. LOL

I’m surprised you didn’t link to Michael Moore .

LMFAO.

Communist Cuba is scientifically proven to be better. COMMUNISM IS SO GREAT. The US should do it!

Delysid,

It’s a scientific fact that Cuba has a better healthcare system than the US. LOL.

Perhaps you would be willing to share the evidence that has convinced you this is so ridiculous it makes you laugh out loud. I could do with a laugh, as my country is apparently about to be flattened by Hurricane St. Jude. Here are some numbers:

Life expectancy at birth m/f (years) Cuba: 76/80 USA: 76/81
Probability of dying under five (per 1 000 live births) Cuba: 6 USA: 7
Probability of dying between 15 and 60 years m/f (per 1 000 population) Cuba: 119/75 USA: 131/77
Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2011) Cuba: 430 USA: 8,608
Total expenditure on health as % of GDP (2011) Cuba: 10.0 USA: 17.9

A triumph of the free market? LOL Do you have any evidence that any of this data is in any way unreliable, other than it is on the WHO website? Any reason at all to believe any of this is wrong?

Opinion surveys and government collected and reported data is so scientific. LOL.

Opinion surveys have become more and more sophisticated and more and more accurate over the past few decades. When was the last time we were surprised by an election result that hadn’t been predicted accurately by pollsters? The accuracy of polls has taken all the fun out of elections. Do you have any evidence that “government collected and reported data” has been manipulated or is otherwise inaccurate?

The WHO, which openly promotes socialized medicine, is the gold standard of trustworthiness when reporting about US healthcare. LOL

You must have good evidence to support your belief that the WHO is untrustworthy, and alters data to support its socialist agenda. Where is it?

I think your LOL is simply an expression of your own prejudices, not from any real reason to disbelieve the data, simply because it doesn’t fit with your beliefs. We see this over and over with people so absolutely convinced of something (coffee enemas cure cancer, homeopathy works, radiation is good for you, sugar causes all disease, fasting cures all diseases…) that they simply cannot believe any evidence that contradicts their beliefs. They accuse people of being shills paid to distort the evidence, of covering up the truth, and they claim that there is a vast conspiracy to stop reality from looking the way they know it is because the voices in their head tell them so (that last should be in ALL CAPS, but I couldn’t bear to do that).

Prove me wrong with some evidence. Go on, think for yourself, you can do it!

I’m surprised you didn’t link to Michael Moore . LMFAO.

Trans. “When the data contradict my prejudices, even the most prestigious science journal in the world is laughably unreliable.”

The life expectancy of Utah is 80.2 years and the life expectancy in Nevada is 78.1. Utah is ranked #10 while Nevada is #36. Those two states have nearly identical health care systems and demographics and border each other. EXPLAIN THAT!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_life_expectancy

Or you know, life expectancy is a terrible measure of a health care system.

And if you believe the numbers reported by communist Cuba, you are a FOOL.

Do you know how many pairs of rubber gloves dentists are assigned per day? According to my ex-girlfriend’s family who currently practices there (half of her family is physicians and dentists practicing in US and half in Cuba), they usually have one for the entire day, sometimes two or 3 if they are stingy and save up some.

Cuba has a few beautiful hospitals for tourists. communist party members, and communist documentary film makers. Cubans themselves are banned from using these. What does the WHO have to say about these?

Right now the Cuban government gives physicians and dentists 15 or so dollars for a month. Oh but they have free healthcare! Imma right?

Also, I don’t care how “prestigious” Science is. When they start promoting communist Cuba all credibility is lost.

Peter Agre might be a great biochemist, but he is a typical socialist political hack. He is a laughable Obamabot, forming Science and Engineers for CHANGE.

Political propaganda has no place in a Science journal.

Perhaps Delysid could hang his toothyologist shingle in that libertarian paradise known as Somalia.

Krebs – I went through a similar thing here in the socialist paradise of the Great White North and after reading a great chunk of this thread, I have no reason to think a libertarian gubmint would do any better because it will be filled with and lobbied by people who will be every bit as craven and corrupt as the current lot.

@Al – again, if Delsyid is so upset with the current set-up, he should be free to emigrate to the wide variety of successful libertarian paradises around the globe, right?

Delsyid – and what were those again?

Delysid- If you’re going to complain about us dismissing your sources based on a history of delusion and deceit, could you please not dismiss our sources because they come to conclusions you dislike?

It’s become clear that for Delysid, fallacies hold the same place that sins have for religion extremists: There’s things to condemn others for, but not things to avoid oneself. For example, consider his mentioning “Argument to moderation” in #680. I never made any statements of the sort, I was calling him out for his use of false dilemma!

Also, I don’t care how “prestigious” Science is. When they start promoting communist Cuba all credibility is lost.

The longer this thread goes, the more Delysid sounds like Ginger Taylor.

The life expectancy of Utah is 80.2 years and the life expectancy in Nevada is 78.1. Utah is ranked #10 while Nevada is #36. Those two states have nearly identical health care systems and demographics and border each other. EXPLAIN THAT!

Nearly identical demographics? According to http://quickfacts.census.gov/
White population
Utah 91.8%
Nevada: 77.1%

Median household income
Utah: $57,783
Nevada: $55,553

Persons below poverty level
Utah: 11.4%
Nevada: 12.9%

Persons 65 years and over
Utah: 9.5%
Nevada: 13.1%

Could these differences explain a difference of 2.7% in life expectancy? I think they could.

Or you know, life expectancy is a terrible measure of a health care system.

That’s true, you can’t just blame health care, general social care among some parts of the population is to blame as well. Infant mortality is arguably a better measure, though that suffers from the same effects of social care as life expectancy, but that seems to be better in Cuba too. Despite the appalling rubber glove shortage.

And if you believe the numbers reported by communist Cuba, you are a FOOL.

Why is a Communist country any less trustworthy than any other? Anyway, these are not figures reported by Cuba, these are figures compiled and checked by the WHO and by UNICEF. There isn’t an iron curtain that prevents WHO and UNICEF from visiting Cuba to check these figures for themselves. How does Cuba manage such a huge conspiracy to distort these figures.

@Lawrence – Remember, Delysid thinks anyone who disagrees with him is a Communist. Hence all the references to Cuba: He thinks that somehow, it serves as a counter-example to our statements, even though nearly all of us disapprove of dictatorship. Mind you, he’s simple-minded enough to think that the only reason someone would make rules is to have power over others.

Narad,

Did it just start babbling about Cuba out of the blue?

My fault I think. I pointed out that some more socialist countries in Europe provide more cost-effective health care than the free market does in the US, and I linked to a league table of countries, which included Cuba.

Somalia Ayn Rand Roads Shareholder-Profits Your’e a Racist. A liberal debate robot would be easy to program. Somalia Ayn Rand Roads Shareholder-Profits Your’e a a Racist.

Delysid, it would be easier if you actually bothered to read what we say, rather than rely on childish mockery. Perhaps the reason you keep hearing those arguments is because we have a legitimate point, one that you never address.

Delysid, his only source was a ten-year old paper speculating on the possibility of bias, but not giving much evidence of it.

Infant mortality? Another TERRIBLE modality for judging a health care system. Lies, eamned lies, and statistics.

I have written about this here before, and I don’t think you can dismiss the higher infant mortality rate in the US (as compared to other developed countries, not the rest of the world, I should stress) as being due entirely to different ways of measuring it.

One of the major contributors to infant mortality is prematurity, which is strongly influenced by poverty and poor antenatal care. There are large numbers of women in the US, especially Black and Hispanic women who live in poor social conditions and who get lousy antenatal care. I love the US, but the huge underclass there is shameful.

This is getting away from my point, which is that a country like Cuba seems to be doing a reasonably good job of looking after its population while spending a tiny fraction of the amount the US does:
Total expenditure on health per capita in $ Cuba: 430 USA: 8,608. That’s a 20-fold difference.

What do you consider a good measure of a country’s health and well-being? Not life expectancy it seems, nor infant mortality,

Oh, and do you really think a right-wing rag like ‘The National Review’ is more reliable than ‘Science’?

Both life expectancy and infant mortality are horrible indicators of anything.

Even healthcare spending itself is not necessarily a negative thing. It should be up to individual people about how to spend their money, not politicians or bureaucrats. If someone in the US spends a few thousand dollars to get crowns on several teeth and someone in France just extracts them, is it outrageous that the American spent more money on health care? Of course not.

But if we are stuck in the eternal logical fallacy that the State is the alpha and the omega and all evidence always defends more State intervention then discusssion is pointless.

Socialists will criticize the American healthcare system for spending too much and then turn around and criticize it for pending too little. It is about one thing-CONTROL. It is always about control. The government must control everything because only government spends just the right amount. This is what is so sickening. “I just care about the poor so much that I want the government to control society.” No, you don’t. You care about the authority of government so much that you will sacrifice any part of society to increase government power, epecially the poor.

I pointed out that some more socialist countries in Europe provide more cost-effective health care than the free market does in the US, and I linked to a league table of countries, which included Cuba.

Right, I saw that, but Cuba’s No. 28. A body would have to be desperate, a complete imbecile, or both to seize upon that for a bout of self-soiling apoplexy.

Whoa Narad used the word apoplexy in a sentence. He is like a total genius you guys. He might be the smartest person to ever use the internet.

Narad serioulsy I know you know how brilliant you are, but seriously you are just amazingly intellectual. If you join government we will have to call it Godverment.

Hey Narad here is some free medical advice. If you create too powerful of a vacuum orally while stimulating yourself go to the ER if you develop a priapism lasting over 4 hours.

Hey Narad here is some free medical advice.

I was talking about you, not to you. Mind your place.

A little angry huh? Stress can cause erectile dysfunction. Light a candle, dim the lights, and don’t let me ruin your therapy session with little Narad.

You could be a little more understanding, Narad. It’s hard for him to see his monitor through the spittle.

Peaches, if I were angry, I’d just send a copy of the thread someplace or another you wouldn’t appreciate but would remember.

Now, if you don’t mind, I’m afraid I’m going to have to turn you off to properly appreciate the rest of the denouement.

*plonk*

Delysid, it isn’t about control. It’s about human life. Are you incapable of understanding any but the most selfish of motives?

Delysid,

This is what is so sickening. “I just care about the poor so much that I want the government to control society.” No, you don’t. You care about the authority of government so much that you will sacrifice any part of society to increase government power, epecially the poor.

That is one of the weirdest things I have read from you, and that’s saying something. Why would I or anyone else commenting here want to increase government power just for the sake of it? How would that in any way benefit me or them?

You seem to assume that everyone has the same fetishistic attachment to an ideology that you do.

@Gray Falcon

It is 100% about control. Socialism is defined as State control over the means of production. This jibber jabber about “life” is just emotional propaganda. A facade. That’s why socialized medicine is called “universal” health care. It is meant to appeal to emotional thinking and feelings rathervthan reason.

I care very much for life.

Do you understand any emotion besides your own selfishness? “I want to be controlled and ruled over, therefore everyone else must be ruled over and controlled as well.”‘

It is amazing to me how you can accuse me of being selfish over and over and still remain oblivious that you are advocating the most selfish ideology in the history of mankind- statism (and the worst aspects of statism, socialism).

Delysid, are you God? Can you see the human soul? Do you have the right to decide what other people think and believe? Perhaps if you learned what other people believe in, you might actually understand.

@Lawrence

Has Delsyid actually answered a single one of our questions yet?

As we near 1300 comments, nope. Delysid still has provided zero quality evidence to support anything he’s said, let alone answer legitimate questions posed to him in any manner resembling a serious answer.

In reality, Delysid isn’t even a Libertarian. He’s simply a Contrarian.

@Gray Falcon

Are you kidding me? “Do you have the right to decide what other people think and believe?”

NO! NO! That is the point of all of this. Now you are twisting this around like I”m somehow infringing on your rights?!

“Delysid and other libertarians are bullies! They won’t let me control their lives! Libertarians are so selfish! They won’t let me spend their money for them!”

This is unbelievable. You have to be trolling me now. There is no way anyone is so dense and so intellectually dimwitted as to sincerely think what you are saying.

@Todd W

What questions have I still not answered? I have answered everything.

How else do you expect me to say it? It all comes down to ethics.

If I storm into your house, with my government credentials, and put a literal or metaphorical gun to your head in order to confiscate your money and other property for the “greater good of society,” does this make it right? Do you have to prove with scientific evidence that this is wrong? What if I’m not a government agent? Is it still just as right or wrong?

I can show proof of all of the wonderful products I give to children with the money I take directly from you. What evidence can you show that proves that society is better off with you keeping your own money?

Delysid,

It is 100% about control. Socialism is defined as State control over the means of production.

I don’t think anyone here has proposed an entirely socialist state, not even me. Personally I think a welfare state is a good idea, and I think some other public services are best provided by the state. I’m not proposing state ownership of everything, only health care, public transport, criminal justice, education, and roads, none of which are “means of production”, and perhaps public utilities, energy and water. I also think the US people and her economy would do better under a more generous welfare system i.e. if she were more socialist than currently. By the way, even under the NHS a person can choose to pay for more expensive dental care than they would get from the NHS, the same in France.

This jibber jabber about “life” is just emotional propaganda. A facade.

I suppose that’s why so many of us writing here are in the ‘caring professions’, to keep up the facade that we care about people’s health and wellbeing when really all we want is a bigger and more powerful government. All those years working for the NHS for a lower wage than I could have earned in the private sector was just a facade designed to stop people from seeing I was really just empowering the government. I hadn’t even realized just how cunning I am.

That’s why socialized medicine is called “universal” health care.

Oh I see, living in the UK where we have “universal” health care, I thought it was called that because everyone living here has access to it and it is free at point of care.

It is meant to appeal to emotional thinking and feelings rathervthan reason.

Of course, “universal” is so much more emotive a word than “socialized”, especially in the US, where no one has a knee-jerk negative reaction to any word beginning with “social”.

I care very much for life.

I’m sure you do, but I think you support an ideology that would, if put into practice in the US, for example, rapidly result in a very large amount of human misery.

It is amazing to me how you can accuse me of being selfish over and over and still remain oblivious that you are advocating the most selfish ideology in the history of mankind- statism (and the worst aspects of statism, socialism).

I am certainly oblivious to that. How is a form of government that provides a welfare state and the means for redistributing wealth “selfish”? Based on previous performance I’ll brace myself for a rant about Stalinist Russia.

Perhaps if you thought of yourself as a part of society and (potentially) government, you wouldn’t see yourself as being bullied and coerced by an authority figure. How is/was your relationship with your father? Just curious.

@Kreb

How exactly is “health care” different from any other sector of society? Is medicine NOT a good? Is it somehow exempt from the laws of supply and demand?

Why don’t you want socialism for everything? If socialism works in those sectors you named why doesn’t it work in the others?

Also my relationship with both of my parents is great and always has been. What an insulting question. Fun fact. My parents were both public-school teachers in two different communities. They had such low-regard for the pitiful results of public schools (which they knew first-hand for decades) that they sent myself and my siblings to private schools. It wasn’t a political statement. Observational fact from decades of experience in the socialized educational system you are so fond of.

Delysid:

What questions have I still not answered?

To refresh your memory:
How would a libertarian state deal with price fixing?
How would a libertarian state prevent blood feuds?
How would a libertarian state deal with the large number of displaced people following a major catastrophe?
Would the magical free market fund less flashy, but still essential basic research?
What evidence would convince you of anthropogenic climate change?
How do you deal with those too ill to work, to poor to afford health care, who fail to save money for old age, who get addicted to the freely available addictive drugs in your utopia, who steal from others, who teach their children dangerous nonsense, who plot to kill others, who invade your country with an army, who refuse to pay for a road but now try to use it etc. etc.?
Explain how the free market would address the problem of a single parent who is unable to command a sufficient income to provide for herself and her child.
How would you prevent abuses of power in a libertarian society?
Consider your example @ 393 of how the market creates wealth, involving fish, a spear, woven huts, etc. What happens if, instead of trading the fish Narad has caught with his captial (the spear he made) for the shelter representing Orac’s capital, Narad instead uses that spear to take Orac’s hut by force? How exactly would market forces act to either prevent that loss or to return Orac’s capital to him?
Name a successful libertarian state.
If you have answered these questions, please point out at which comments you did.

cleanup for protein spill in comment 1267

still strawmanning and eliding reality I see

Gubmint always spends the right amount? Imagine the following in bold 48pt comic sans with cycling flashing neon colours:

LOL

The provincial red clowns here in the middle of Soviet Canukistan decided to be green and replace dirty coal fired hydro plants with cleaner natural gas. Zo, they knock down, rather than refit, existing infrastructure and put in a park. Green.

Since the area still needs a generating station, they make deals with the kind freemarketers and ignore their constituents – twice. As a result, hydro bills are going up to pay for the $1.1B or more we owe for nothing. The previous blue clowns had privatised this sector with cries of “competition = lower power rates”, so this raise in rates has quite shocked this monkey.

Meanwhile, the blue clowns federally have misplaced $3B, no idea where it went, after running up the highest deficit in histoire since the last fiscal conservative merde in a suit.

For all the jabbering aboot feelings, nothing more than feelings, liberal feelings, one can feel an almost palpable hatred emanating from this one

@Julian Frost

How would the “magical” free market pick cotton without the slaves?

Free market science versus government science.
http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/the-free-market-and-scientific-research#axzz2j7GZh5IN

Free rider problem.

http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/the-free-market-and-scientific-research#axzz2j7GZh5IN

No evidence will convince me that PLOITICIANS should solve gloal warming issues. Who ate these magical god politicians progressives are so enamored with? “People in the free market are terrible but politicians are smart and ethical.” Lol

Don’t quite understand how Delsyid is confident that corporations won’t start acting like governments on to themselves, if they should have free-reign….given the experiences we’ve had with little or no regulation in the past….

Again, please point to where your theories have been tried and found to be successful?

How would the libertarian state deal with the problems posed by the generation of chemical, radioactive and bio-hazardous waste?
How would the libertarian state ensure employees maintained safe working conditions in their factories/mines/etc.?
How would the libertarian state prevent employers from engaging in exploitive child labor practices?
For that matter, how would the libertarian state prevent children from being commodified?
How would the libertarian state ensure adherence to building codes, such that a single builder could not place surrounding homes/facilities at risk of fire?
Speaking of fire, how would the libertarian state address the necessity of ensuring available emergency services (fire, medical, etc.)?
How would the libertarian state provide the transportation infrastructure (highways, bridges, tunnels, etc.) necessary for interstate commerce?
How would the libertarian state ensure the safety, efficacy and purity of drugs and medical devices manufacturers offer for sale?

And of course the fundamental unanswered question:

Given that in even the presence of government ‘force’ (i.e., strong regulation and a judicial system capable of punishing offenders) we observe that people still behave unethically, what evidence suggests they’d behave as well (let alone any better) in its total absence?

So Delysid fails to answer most of the questions that I aggregated, gives inadequate answers to the two he does answer, then strawmans by asking:

How would the “magical” free market pick cotton without the slaves?

As Gray Falcon pointed out, while price fixing goes away on its own, so do house fires. The price fixing by South African bakeries was exposed when an astute shopowner saw that all 3 major South African bakeries hiked their prices in the space of less than a week.

How does the State do these things? The State has failed ti solve any of these problems, but I’m supposed to predict the future? The market is not one thing. How about with nuclear waste we have some competition to see who can do it best? The government doesn’t have the need to profit and is never punshed for making mistakes? Oh we blew a trillion dollars in taxes? Pay us more taxes or go to jail.

That article about the free market made me laugh:

The discovery of the structure of DNA was largely a product of private action.

How so?

O.T. Avery, while working on a cure for pneumonia at the privately funded Rockefeller Institute in the 1940s, became the first person to learn that DNA was the molecule of inheritance.

Nothing to do with the efforts of Watson and Crick at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge (publicly funded), and Franklin and Wilkins at King’s in London (also publicly funded)?

How about with nuclear waste we have some competition to see who can do it best?

Great idea. I know a bloke with a wheelbarrow who says he can dispose of it very cheaply.

I think you’re playing a semantic game here, by responding “The state has failed to solve these problems” when the question you’ve been asked is “How would your libertarian state deal with these problems?”

Currwently the state deals with ensuring the safety, efficacy and purity of marketed drugs and medical devices with agencies vested with regulatory authority ,such as the FDA. It deals with ensuring workplace safety with agencies vested with regulatory authority, like OSHA. With the generation of radioactive, chemical and bio-hazardous waste with OSHA again and also the EPA. It deals with exploitive child labor with laws regulating employment; with contractors endangering communities with laws establishing building codes.

And of course with the creation and maintenance of judicial systems capable of punishing violators.

The state deals with protecting the most vulnerable members of our society by providing public assistance such as SNAP programs, etc.

Is there room for improvement? Of course. But the question we’re asking you is how your libertarian state would address these problems as well or better than the current system does now. For example, what does public health policy look like in your libertarian state?

The impression you’ve given me is that your libertarian state wouldn’t even consider many of these problems to be problems in the first place.

How about with nuclear waste we have some competition to see who can do it best?

What exactly is stopping anyone from competing right now?

How did you fail to note the link you provided identifies the activities of the commercial businesses (food manufacturers, food retailers, and banks) which profit from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as a problem, not SNAP program itself.

If anything your link suggests the need for greater t oversight and regulation, not eliminating all regulation and oversight.

One wonders if Delysid’s solution to cavities involves the extraction of all teeth.

How does the state solve the problem of cavities, Grey Falcon? The state has failed to solve the problem–people still get cavities!

No one will get cavities in free market societies. If they even think they’re going to get cavities they’ll just take their teeth somewhere else.

@JGC

I think you’re playing a semantic game here, by responding “The state has failed to solve these problems” when the question you’ve been asked is “How would your libertarian state deal with these problems?”

Exactly. That’s all Delysid has done in this thread. Instead of answering the questions asked, he takes a straw man approach and answers questions that weren’t asked. He’s no different than a Creationist, arguing that “evolution doesn’t explain X, therefore God!”

Delysid’s sole justification for his stance is “Government hasn’t solved X in a way that I like, therefore Libertarianism!”

@JGC

One way the American State has tried to stop dental caries is by mass medication with the fluoride ion in the public water supply. Amazingly, even most of Western Europe, governments which I mostly disagree with, recognized the ridiculousness of this practice ethically and scientifically and ended the practice of public water fluoridation decades ago.

I’ve been getting linked to quackery by some people in this thread, so I want to remind everyone that I am NOT a chemophobe and I treat patients quite frequently with fluoride therapy when it is indicated, usually in the form of prophylactic polishing paste or resin-modified glass ionomer in large molar restorations. I am against putting fluoride in the public water supply, not in administering patients with fluoride in individual treatments.

On a side note, I am not a huge fan of mercury-silver amalgams and will avoid them in private practice, but I understand they are quite harmless biologically and environmentally when the reaction is set and stable, but I find it interesting that several Scandinavian countries have banned their use as dental restorations. I obviously disagree with this prohibition on ethical grounds, but it is amusing to me that these countries also recognize the potential (minimal) hazards of mercury-amalgam to dentists, staff and patients when placing these restorations and to the environment during cremation while the US government defends their use so vehemently.

State-run programs in the US that have attempted to improve community oral health have not been successful economically and the means have certainly not justified the ends. Head Start has failed to make any significant improvement in childhood caries (unless one only considers self-evaluation propaganda by the Federal government) and Medicaid only increased access to care for children and adults by 10% or so despite billions of dollars of tax money being spent on them.

I am quite familiar with some of the epidemiology studies that supposedly defend these Federal programs, as I not only read them but was TESTED on them, but I openly called BS and challenged several of my professors about them (with ethical arguments and counter-epidemiology studies).

No one can or will promise that “in a free-market no will get get caries.” That’s like saying “in a free-market no one will develop noninsulin dependent diabetes mellitus.” It’s a matter of genetics and environment and personal behavior.

In my opinion the Nanny State contributes to oral diseases and health ignorance. For instance, the Federal government subsidizes tens of billions of dollars annually in grains. There is a causation between a high-sugar diet and dental caries.

Government campaigns such as public water fluoridation and Head Start and Medicaid discourage personal responsibility in health. What is the incentive to put forth effort in one’s (or one’s children) health when dependent on the government? Nanny State programs encourage ignorance.

It is sad for me to work in pediatrics and see young children with rampant caries. I’m uncomfortable extracting teeth in both children and adults (especially teens and 20 somethings).

Government force through a Nanny State cannot help them. Mass medication cannot help them (as evidenced by nearly identical DMF indices comparisons of the US and Europe). There are exceptions of course, but for the most part it is up to people to help themselves. Even young children can be taught the importance of oral health care and take of their own health to a strong extent. Dentists are trying their best to help people help themselves through medicine and education, and no profession tries to eliminate itself more than dentistry, but it takes individual effort from patients.

The market has provided unprecedented opportunities for society in oral health. Tooth brushes, floss, antiseptic mouthwash, and other dentrifices in Western culture are ubiquitous and cheap. Dentistry, which has largely avoided the costs of socialism that has plagued the rest of medicine, continues to be of ever higher quality and affordability. This should make perfect sense to those who understand economics from the lens of the free-market, as honest competition produces excellence. Implants, for example, are a fraction of the cost (relative to inflation) from only a decade ago. Implants, of course, aren’t subjected to the price manipulations of government and insurance (which derives its power from government legislation). This is what happens in the market. The laws of supply and demand.

@Todd W

You are dead-wrong. If the government (particularly socialist redistribution of wealth) worked perfectly for every single person (which is laughably impossible), I WOULD STILL OPPOSE GOVERNMENT FORCE.

It is just an inevitable sequela due to the nature of government that it fails miserably at its endeavors (and even when it succeeds it comes at a great, unjustifiable price). I require zero “scientific’ evidence to oppose government.

I believe in voluntary relationships, therefore libertarianism.

I made a huge mistake in this thread of playing the statism slavery game. “Prove to me scientifically why you shouldn’t be my slave. Prove to me why government shouldn’t control you.” Has a government assessment of government policy ever concluded that their intervention was NOT successful?

This is the logical fallacy with which statists always try to claim victory.

A free society is default. This is trying to prove a negative.

“If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?” Bastiat

@Todd W

You are dead-wrong. If the government (particularly socialist redistribution of wealth) worked perfectly for every single person (which is laughably impossible), I WOULD STILL OPPOSE GOVERNMENT FORCE.

It is just an inevitable sequela due to the nature of government that it fails miserably at its endeavors (and even when it succeeds it comes at a great, unjustifiable price). I require zero “scientific’ evidence to oppose government.

I believe in voluntary relationships, therefore libertarianism.

I made a huge mistake in this thread of playing the statism slavery game. “Prove to me scientifically why you shouldn’t be my slave. Prove to me why government shouldn’t control you.” Has a government assessment of government policy ever concluded that their intervention was NOT successful?

This is the logical fallacy with which statists always try to claim victory.

A free society is default. This is trying to prove a negative.

“If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?” Bastiat

@Todd W

You are dead-wrong. If the government (particularly socialist redistribution of wealth) worked perfectly for every single person (which is laughably impossible), I WOULD STILL OPPOSE GOVERNMENT FORCE.

It is just an inevitable sequela due to the nature of government that it fails miserably at its endeavors (and even when it succeeds it comes at a great, unjustifiable price). I require zero “scientific’ evidence to oppose government.

I believe in voluntary relationships, therefore libertarianism.

I made a huge mistake in this thread of playing the statism slavery game. “Prove to me scientifically why you shouldn’t be my slave. Prove to me why government shouldn’t control you.” Has a government assessment of government policy ever concluded that their intervention was NOT successful?

This is the logical fallacy with which statists always try to claim victory.

A free society is default. This is trying to prove a negative.

“If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?” Bastiat

Delyisd:

It is just an inevitable sequela due to the nature of government that it fails miserably at its endeavors (and even when it succeeds it comes at a great, unjustifiable price).

Old Rockin’ Dave @ 314 gave a list of government successes. Others have pointed out the contribution of DARPA to the internet and how gene mapping was kicked off by government contributions.

I require zero “scientific’ evidence to oppose government.

Evidence? We dun need no steenkin’ evidence!

Prove to me why government shouldn’t control you.

And once again, you confuse regulation and oversight with dictatorial control.

Has a government assessment of government policy ever concluded that their intervention was NOT successful?

Yes. Outcomes Based Education was used and then abandoned in South Africa after the evidence showed it wasn’t working.

Here is a very good comparison of a successful government intervention vs. market-led intervention that is also extremely timely…..

During the Great Depression, large numbers of Americans were at risk of defaulting on their mortgages and facing foreclosure. To assist, the government set up a program to work directly with the homeowners and the banks to negotiate better terms, appropriate payment schedules, and other interventions to keep people in their homes. The banks were also protected, because they weren’t forced out of business by a tidal wave of mortgage defaults.

When the program ended, not only was the rate of foreclosures kept at a minimum, but it also ended up generating a profit for the US Government (truly a win, win, win for everyone involved).

Compare that to the 2008 – 2013 period, where government intervention was kept to a minimum, with very little effort made to truly assist homeowners or work with the financial institutions to make the necessary corrections to prevent foreclosures (with over 350 banks going out of business, merging or being bought by other, less struggling institutions).

Again, history shows us that Delsyid’s “theories” don’t hold water and certainly don’t automatically mean that things will be better (whether it be for the individual – unless that individual has acquired sufficient resources to manipulate events to their advantage, or corporations, which certainly only work for their own benefit).

This isn’t to say that the government is always right – because time and time again, we’ve said that it isn’t – but at least we can say that, unless there is an alternative to our current system – that what we have today is the best we’ve got – and the goal should be to always seek improvement and balance between the needs of the individual, the needs of business, and the requirements for government vs. an open and fair economic system.

Again, I ask Delsyid – where has his type of society been tried & been successful?

@JGC #1295 and #1297 — There’s another three-letter government agency involved, one that has a great deal of technical expertise in protecting people (including Delysid) when civilians use radioactive stuff (or want to safely store radioactive waste). 🙂

@Delysid

Take a look at your posts again. You focus on how you think government has failed on various topics, yet you do not provide any evidence that Libertarianism would be any better than, let alone as good as, government.

Is there any form of government you’d support? If so, what roles would it fill? What would it do?

Delysid,

I believe in voluntary relationships, therefore libertarianism.

That’s a very silly non sequitur. I believe in voluntary relationships, therefore democracy. As far as I’m concerned I have a voluntary agreement with my government and the society I live in to obey their rules and laws and to face the consequences if I don’t (and I get caught). If there is anything I don’t like there is a democratic process I can use to change things, or I can go to another country. No one is forcing me to live where I do, but if I want to live here I have to abide by the local rules, the same as anywhere I happen to travel to.

If anyone doesn’t like living in a democratic society they are free to move to another part of the planet where there is a political (or taxation) system they do like. Lots of people do this already, they are called tax exiles.

Are there any experimental libertarian communities anywhere? Surely a group of libertarians could club together, buy an island somewhere and set up their own libertarian community. I for one would be fascinated to see how that developed. However, I have a suspicion that most libertarians aren’t prepared to put their money where their mouths are. Most libertarian literature seems to be mostly about constructing complex trains of logic resulting in weird consequences all based on questionable precepts and assumptions.

I’ll quote again the introduction to Nozick’s ‘The Ethics of Liberty’:

[…] Nozick’s libertarianism was, and claimed to be, no more than just an interesting thought. He did not mean to do any real harm to the ideas of his socialist opponents. He only wanted to throw an interesting idea into the democratic open-ended intellectual debate, while everything real, tangible, and physical could remain unchanged and everyone could go on with his life and thoughts as before.

Mental masturbation, one might call it, with the intention of irritating “socialists” (that appears to be a blanket term for non-libertarians) but with no practical applications.and nothing useful to contribute.

scottynuke @1309

yeah, for some reason my mind drew a total blank with respect to the NRC

I think part of the problem people like Delysid have is a difficulty understanding concept of “implied contracts”. The various laws of the land can be seen as such: You benefit from interstate highways and police officers, and so you pay the taxes. Libertarians will claim they never consented to any agreement.

However, if one enters a restaurant and requests a meal, then one is expected to pay for the meal. Saying “I never agreed to pay for this” will not go over well. As mentioned earlier, a bar with a cover charge can claim someone’s money for simply walking inside the premises. One can dispute such contracts: For example, if the cover charge is not posted clearly, or the amount being spent on public works is clearly less that the amount going in. Disputing the concept itself, however, is not a good idea.

@Kreb

You believe in voluntary relationships, therefore democracy? That makes sense to you? What about when the majority decides to use force (which happens daily in politics?) Argumentum ad populum?

The tragedy regarding libertarianism is that a socialist community can exist peacefully in a larger libertarian society (aka communes), but a libertarian community is NOT permitted under a socialist government. If a group of libertarians join together and decide not to pay taxes they are declared terrorists by the government and invaded. In socialism everyone must be controlled.

There a movement called the Free State Project where thousands of libertarians are moving to New Hampshire to try to influence state politics. They are having success. I am considering making the move out there.

@Gray Falcon

I understand political science far better than you do. You don’t have to go into a restaurant. The restaurant is not going to go to your house and arrest you for not eating there.

It is ridiculous to compare this to government. Now the Federal Government has declared that everyone has to purchase health insurance. Simply by existing you are breaking the law if you don’t pay.

The social contract is a joke. The founding fathers tried to establish a Republic of states and counties so that local governments could form their own laws and have some competition, but progressive tyrants have since destroyed the 10th amendment and now seek to pass all laws through the Federal government.

It’s a disgusting mindset to have a small group of people in DC making laws for 300 million people.

@Delysid

As with the restaurant patron, you do not have to live in a country. You can go elsewhere. So what’s the problem with the country having certain rules for those who choose to live there?

Oh, and I’ll ask again: Is there any form of government you’d support? If so, what roles would it fill? What would it do?

Here in the US, if you don’t make that much money and you suffer a serious illness, you had two options: Die of disease or die of penury. But at least you were given a choice.

Delysid@1283:

“My parents were both public-school teachers in two different communities. They had such low-regard for the pitiful results of public schools (which they knew first-hand for decades) that they sent myself and my siblings to private schools.”

Then why can’t you spell?

That Free State Project is interesting. My sister-in-law lives in Dover, so I’ll have to warn that she is about to get swamped by libertarians. If a sufficient number of libertarians do move there it will be very interesting to see how it unfolds. If it does happen, I predict disaster within a year, but I would be happy to be proved wrong.

As I have stated before, a libertarian society in which everyone behaves ethically and responsibly sounds lovely. The problem is there is a significant number of people who do not behave ethically or responsibly without being coerced to do so. Even then a large number do not. There are approximately 7 million people under correctional supervision (prison, probation, parole or jail) in the USA, which must surely tell you something.

I don’t think Delysid’s coming back anytime soon. He’s probably still reeling from the knowledge that most non-libertarians aren’t the stereotypes he learned in his forums, and don’t respond well to him suggesting otherwise. Mostly likely he left to rebuild his dwindling supply of cognitive dissonance.

That Free State Project is interesting.

I especially like the part where people who have no intention of moving anywhere can sign up to help “Trigger the Move,” and all the “solemn intent” that it represents.

I’ve been on a surgery rotation. It’s adorable though that people here think that they have made any impact on me whatsoever. I’m surrounded by dumbass statists everywhere and I’m bombarded with progressive propaganda (though I have a large network of varying degrees of like-minds that keeps me encouraged).

You all mostly repeated the same tired arguments I always hear. Somalia, I’m a racist, I hate poor people, people are bad so we need a government of people are bad so we need a government of people, Ayn Rand, and so on. There were a few new twists that I had to think about and do some research on (mostly by Chris), but overall not really.

I’m still a libertarian. Not one person changed any of my viewpoints. This is extremely unlikely unless we are talking about the nuances of minarchism vs. anarcho-capitalism, two viewpoints I oscillate between depending on my mood.

All of you, unless you work directly for the State, presumably live your lives as libertarians. Most people do. Somehow there is a wide misunderstanding and mass hysteria that the government is the force keeping society orderly, so millions of people who live 364 days a year as libertarians vote on election day for tyranny.

Delysid, if you had bothered to read our posts, you would have noticed that we mostly asked questions about how your “free society” would deal with real-world situations, which you responded to with scatological insults. Do you think dishonesty impresses us? Do you really think anyone is going to believe your lies? Do you realize anyone can simply scroll up to see the truth?

And I don’t work for the state, but I don’t live as a libertarian. I use roads paid for by taxes, am protected by state police and fire departments, and know that nobody can build a rending plant in our neighborhood. Compare that to your “free society”, where one would likely need a gas mask and three weapons on hand at all times.

“Not one person changed any of my viewpoints.”

Well, yes. You said no evidence or logic could make you change your viewpoints. Therefore your viewpoint didn’t change. I didn’t even bother engaging the actual argument for that reason.

So, we’re all ganging up on you, but we’re all secretly libertarians who secretly agree with you, if we’d only admit it, and we all secretly act like libertarians when no one is watching because secretly we all know you are secretly right!

Congratulations, you are become Greg, the destroyer of intelligent thought.

@Politicalguineapig, I read that article. Frankly, her dad comes across as a psychopath. “I’ve got mine so f*** everyone else!” It strikes me that libertarianism and psychopathy fit each other like hand and glove.

Somehow there is a wide misunderstanding and mass hysteria that the government is the force keeping society orderly, so millions of people who live 364 days a year as libertarians vote on election day for tyranny.

I suppose it hasn’t occurred to you that perhaps, just perhaps, it is true that the government is the force keeping society orderly. Maybe that’s one reason why societies have governments. I’m certainly glad to have some sort of law enforcement where I live, because of the crime that occurs every day. Without any police I can only imagine that it would be worse, but I suppose that’s my limited imagination.

I can imagine a private police force, that I could choose to pay for or not. But then why should I pay for the police to get rid of the drug dealers and prostitutes who have recently decided to move into my local area, for example, when my neighbor hasn’t bothered? Funding a police force through central taxation seems a lot simpler and fairer to me.

By the way, I still chuckle quietly to myself when I see the USA described as “tyranny”. “Help, help, I’m being oppressed!”

@Delysid

As Khani points out, you are starting to sound an awful lot like Greg.

minarchism vs. anarcho-capitalism, two viewpoints I oscillate between depending on my mood

Ah, so sometimes you’re a statist, and sometimes you’re an anarchist? Thanks for answering what form of government (if any) you think there should be. Now for the second half of my question: when you’re feeling statist, what specific role should the state play? What level of government action is allowable?

I can imagine a private police force, that I could choose to pay for or not. But then why should I pay for the police to get rid of the drug dealers and prostitutes who have recently decided to move into my local area, for example, when my neighbor hasn’t bothered?

Krebiozen, good point. There’s also the question: what’s the difference between a private police force and a mafia?

Julian: Good point. As I said earlier, a lot of libertarians seem to like the movement because they feel that the state impedes them from being as creeptastic and awful as they want to be.
I also think that a lot of libertarians fundamentally misunderstand society. They seem to think we are all tigers growling at each other in the night, not that we’re social animals and have evolved rules so we can function and survive as a species.

All of you, unless you work directly for the State, presumably live your lives as libertarians.

You’re now saying it’s possible to live one’s life as a libertarian even in a democratic republic where markets are regulated and ‘government force’ is all pervasive?

Why do you see such a critical need to abandon this system to embrace an unrelgulated free market liberatarian state, if that’s the case?

An article published on Alternet denouncing Objectivism (not libertarianism) that says “my brother hogged the mashed potatoes” is exactly the level of intellectualism I’ve come to expect from Orac’s special education blog.

Kreb needs the police to protect him from drug dealers and prostitutes (both victimless “crimes” against the State). If the government is the source of order, I can only assume that it is the only force stopping Kreb from smoking crack and banging prostitutes. Because principles are not intrinsic and free will doesn’t exist right? The State is the alpha and the omega?

@Todd

I have answered this no less than 3 times now.

I am both a statist and an anarcho-capitalist because I am of the belief that a population of a certain size will always force some form of a government on society and that “pure” anarchy is just theoretical. I view anarchy as a limit in calculus in that we can’t reach it, but that we should always be approaching it. I am also of the belief that a government that only has a function of a court system would be functionally indistinguishable from a private court system.

@Narad

I was tempted to upload proof with my Oral and Maxillofacial department surgery security card with identification numbers blocked out, then came to my senses and realized screw you. I had class all morning and I’m my next shift starts in a few minutes.

I’m amused that people here are calling me a liar and downplaying dentistry. Dental students aren’t treating cases as complicated as the OMFS residents and specialists obviously, and it isn’t thoracic or neurosurgery, but it is surgery nonetheless. The professional degree historically was called a Doctor of Dental Surgery for a reason.

Simple extractions make up the bulk of my cases, but I did a surgical extraction of a grossly carious #18 with symptomatic irreversible pulpitis and symptomatic apical periodontitis. There wasn’t enough solid enamel or dentin on the crown for leverage for elevation of the remaining root so I had to prepare a buccal triangular surgical flap and access the root by cutting a trough with the drill.
Oh yeah and IA blocks and infiltration do little to stop the sensation of pressure and the patient had a large periapical abscess and was fully conscience. Bleeding was profuse due to the inflammation and having taken aspirin earlier for the pain.

And all of this was taking place in the back of the mouth.Delivering the root tip and tying of the last suture was a good feeling.

But I guess that is no different from mopping the floor.

Delysid:

An article published on Alternet denouncing Objectivism (not libertarianism) that says “my brother hogged the mashed potatoes”…

Did you read past the first page? Her father refused to support her mother and had to be forced to pay alimony by the courts. If the courts hadn’t intervened, she, her brother and mother may have had serious problems.

Kreb needs the police to protect him from drug dealers and prostitutes

That whooshing noise was the sound of the point going over your head at full speed. Drug Dealers and prostitutes mean drug addicts and johns, and people do need protection from them.
Get it?

I am also of the belief that a government that only has a function of a court system would be functionally indistinguishable from a private court system.

Can you provide an real-world example of a functional private court system for comparison, Delysid?

1332 Delysid “…exactly the level of intellectualism I’ve come to expect from Orac’s special education blog.”

Sexism before, and now ableism.

Exactly the level of discourse we’re used to from you, who will not change his mind regardless of the type and amount of evidence.

Delysid @1332

exactly the level of intellectualism I’ve come to expect from Orac’s special education blog

Why are you even posting here?

Are you trying to be provocative deliberately, to evoke emotional responses?

Do you think you’re trying to educate people? Or are you just entertaining yourself?

I’ve been following this thread for more than 1,300 replies now, and I still don’t actually know what Delysid believes.

Oh, I get that he or she hates the idea of government (that is, a body vested with special powers); what I don’t get is why that particular form of collectivism is different from the de facto power of any other collectivist institution.

Similarly, I don’t get why such collectivist action isn’t the natural outgrowth of “unregulated markets,” or even what unregulated markets are supposed to be. By their very nature, players regulate markets; I’m not sure how government actions are supposed to be of a different kind than the individual actions.

It’s almost as if Delysid assumes that power only flows from the government, and never from individuals — as if he or she assumes some natural force will keep individuals from trampling each other’s rights, but that force is somehow powerless before a government. It’d be one thing if he or she eschewed the concepts of rights altogether; then there’d be some harmony to the theory. As it is, it’s a hot mess that I can’t make heads or tails of.

@Mewens- That’s because you’re assuming he’s actually interested in a coherent theory or functioning society. More likely, he’s started with his goals (becoming a dentist without going through dental school) and developed a political stance around them.

Let’s face it, between his esoteric definitions, habit of partial quotation, and brazen ableism, Delysid’s become the next Th1Th2.

Delysid,

Kreb needs the police to protect him from drug dealers and prostitutes (both victimless “crimes” against the State). If the government is the source of order, I can only assume that it is the only force stopping Kreb from smoking crack and banging prostitutes.

As Julian Frost pointed out you appear to miss my point. I can look out of my living room window most evenings recently and see drug dealers doing business less than 20 yards away. It’s quite interesting to watch, a bit like a real life version of The Wire, though we try not to let them know we are watching, for obvious reasons.

My wife stumbled upon a junkie prostitute shooting up in our communal garbage area a couple of days ago – it is normally locked but someone must have forgotten. Presumably these people have been moved on form wherever they were doing business before. This appears to be the free market in drugs in operation, but drug dealing is very competitive and it brings other crimes, such as prostitution,and because we live right on the boundary of two gang territories we have had two gang-related shootings within a half mile radius of our home, one 5 yards from my front door.

I don’t want this going on in my neighborhood – would you? My neighbors have children, which makes this even worse. I don’t want to leave the area, and don’t have the resources to do so even if I wanted to. Short of getting together with my neighbors and forming some sort of vigilante group, getting the police to deal with this problem seems like the best solution. It’s what we pay our taxes for, among other things.

Because principles are not intrinsic and free will doesn’t exist right? The State is the alpha and the omega?

Using my free will I voluntarily choose to pay taxes to pay for a police force that deals with crime, though sometimes less effectively than I would like. What’s the libertarian solution? Gangs of vigilantes with guns and baseball bats? I’ll stick with my trusty London bobbies thanks.

JF: It actually got worse. Her father tried to force her to emancipate herself, so he could make her pay rent and bills.

Comments are closed.

Discover more from RESPECTFUL INSOLENCE

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading